SECRETARY'S PORTFOLIO. 381 



The old dwarf almond bushes in the gardens are excellent breeding places 

 for this insect, and it would be well for all who love such plants to examine 

 them occasionally, and destroy the grubs. 



PEAR BLIGHT SPECIFIC. 



A. Kelley, in Fruit Recorder, explains that he has had forty years of experi- 

 ence with pears and has had a great many trees killed by blight, but has been 

 uniformly successful in combating the disease with copperas wash since he 

 began it. He uses a pound or two of copperas to a gallon of water and thick- 

 ens it with lime or sulphur so it will show when applied ; puts it on near June 

 first, after removing every sign of blight. When a limb is cut off, he saturates 

 a cloth with the mixture and binds it over the exposed end. The copperas is 

 cheap, costing less than five cents per pound in quantity, and he has restored 

 trees that were half blighted by a thorough use of it. 



Mr. S. B. Peck, of Muskegon, says that his experience rather confirms this 

 notion. He remarks as follows : 



Noticing lately several recommendations of "iron as a fertilizer" and "salt 

 for pear blight," calls to my mind the following: Some eight or ten years 

 since I found the blight had attacked a few dwarf pear trees on my ground. 

 This was the kind of blight in which the young wood suddenly turns black. 

 I applied to the surface of the ground, under the trees, a strong solution of 

 sulphate of iron (copperas) several times till the soil was of a yellow color, 

 pruned severely all the affected wood, and have never seen any blight there 

 since. I would not state that iron will cure pear blight in all or any cases, or 

 even that it did so in this case, but I should most certainly apply the same 

 remedy should blight occur again on my premises. 



BACTERIA AND PEAR-BLIGHT. 



Prof. T. J. Burrill, Professor of Botany and Horticulture at the Illinois 

 Industrial University, followed with a paper on "The So-called Fire-blight of 

 the Pear and Twig-blight of the Apple Tree." His remarks, bearing as they 

 do upon a subject of general interest, are given at some length. 



He said the widespread and disastrous disease of the pear tree, called fire- 

 blight, and that no less prevalent and alarming one known as twig-blight of 

 the apple tree, are due to the same immediate agency. They are identical in 

 origin, and similar in their pathological characteristics, as a priori reasoning 

 might have indicated. The quince and probably other plants, among which 

 might be named the butternut, the Lombardy poplar, and the American aspen, 

 also suffer from the same disease. From descriptions it was very probable that 

 the "yellows" in the peach will be found due to a similar cause. The imme- 

 diate and exciting cause is a living organism producing butyric fermentation in 

 the carbonaceous compounds, starch, etc., in the cells of the affected plants, 

 especially in those of the bark outside of the liber. This organism, if really 

 specifically distinct, is closely allied to the butyric vibrion of Pasteur and Bacil- 

 lus amylobacter of Van Tieghem. The disease has been known in this country 

 over 100 years. Various theories have been advanced, and one by one dis- 



