I 



SOCIETY OF CENTEAL ILLINOIS. 165 



fine and thrifty fruit trees, let us no longer be discouraged and fold 

 our hands idly, saying : " Oh, they must die ; we can't help it/' But, 

 rather, let us take the experience of the diptheric and other cases of 

 animal blood-poisoniug disease, and apply it to the horticultural 

 treatment of our precious fruit trees — Grod's best gift to man, — and 

 which have never seemed half so valuable to us as when attacked 

 with disease, their beautiful forms laid low in death by the invisible 

 and heretofore unknown micro-organisms that fill the air and the 

 stagnant waters of the earth. 



Now, let us look at our app]e trees, and, as the medical man 

 would say, give a diagnosis of their condition. First, we see the limb 

 is affected, not like twig blight, but we see a small limb dying, the 

 leaves turning yellow ; the bark often blackening and always dead- 

 ening, etc., and extending down to the body or larger limbs, and if 

 left until the sap of the poisoned limb mingles with the good sap, and 

 returns to the root for winter rest, and again rising the following 

 spring, we find the sap so vitiated that other limbs soon die, and 

 seldom a tree so attacked survives a second season. We believe that 

 as soon as a limb is known to be dying it is best to amputate at once, 

 as the surgeon does the gangrenous, or blood-poisoned limb of the 

 animal, so that this bad sap shall never be allowed to go down and 

 mingle with the good ; for the bacteria is like leaven, that works 

 •' until all is leavened." In fact, leaven is composed of micro- 

 organisms, which multiply very rapidly by division, or throwing off 

 of their parts, each part forming a new and perfect organism. When 

 the limb is cut off, paint over the wound, and pour coal oil on or 

 about it. 



Never trim an apple tree in the winter, but always in June, so 

 the wound will easily heal over. Better pay five dollars per day for 

 pruning in June than have it done free other times. Farmers 

 usually trim in February or early spring, when they have leisure ; 

 but wherever you take off a limb when its sap is down in the roots, 

 the sap, when returning in spring, will force a heavy growth of 

 sprouts, which are hard to remove. Trim as little as possible, and 

 nosv, when these invisible organisms are so abundant, don't leave the 

 wound exposed for their lodgment, but cover it well with paint. Our 

 active experience with this sap poison is confined to one tree, — a 

 Willow Twig. We noticed it had a large limb, fully one-third of 

 the tree, dying in the spring. The leaves were dead and bark 

 changing. We took a saw and cut it off, away below where affected 

 and close to the body, and poured part of a teacup of kerosene on the 

 stub and bark, about and below. It was so removed that no sap 

 from the poisoned limb ever reached the body of the tree, it healed 

 nicely, and has borne fruit well every season since, — perhaps six or 

 eight years. 



The year following, and each year since, many trees began to 



