REPORT OF STATE HORTICULTURIST. 45 



In the case of the bHster rust it would be : First stage, five 

 needle pines ; second stage, wild and cultivated currants and 

 gooseberries. As no pine infected with the disease was ever 

 known to recover, and as the disease can live on all five needle 

 pines, which are estimated to be worth $425,000,000 in the 

 United States, and as, in addition, the disease once generally 

 present, would kill young pines set to take the place of the old 

 ones, the disease is a dangerous menace. 



HISTORY. 



It was in the early part of the twentieth century that it was 

 discovered that the Blister Rust had been imported into this 

 country quite extensively on white pine seedlings. An immense 

 number of these seedlings came to America in 1909 and 

 became quite widely distributed, especially in New York State. 

 This was at the time when the enthusiasm for forest planting 

 was at its height. Importations of pine from that time have 

 greatly declined, until the quarantine by the Federal Horticul- 

 tural Board, in 1912-13, put a stop to all importations. Thus 

 far, nearly all of the disease on foreign stock has been traced 

 back to one European nursery, which is one of the largest in 

 the world, that of J. Heins Soline of Halstenbek, Germany. 

 Up to the present year it was not known to exist in the State 

 of Maine, although it had been found in the other New Eng- 

 land states as well as in New York and Pennsylvania. It took 

 the government inspector but a short time, however, to dispel 

 all doubts in regard to the matter, as has been mentioned pre- 

 viously, and the problem now confronts us as to how we are 

 going about to control the disease. 



This species of pine disease has been common in Europe 

 for a great many years on the Stone Pine, which is the Euro- 

 pean variety of White Pine. In certain sections of Europe, 

 especially in Holland and Germany, the disease has caused 

 much havoc in nurseries where it attacks the young, tender 

 pines very seriously. In some places, notably, in Holland, at 

 Oldenburg, Germany, and at Moscow, Russia, the disease is 

 so serious that the cultivation of white pine has been altogether 

 abandoned. Young trees are killed outright by the disease and 

 the small branches of large trees are killed. 



