THE BLACK-KNOT OF PLUMS AND CHER- 

 RIES, AND METHODS OF TREATMENT. 



Distribution — Many of our stone fruits, both the wild and the cul- 

 tivated forms, suffer from the attacks of a disease which is popularly 

 known as the black-knot. It is of American origin, and from the 

 early records of its presence on cultivated trees, it appears to have 

 been particularly abundant along the northern half of our Atlan- 

 tic sea-board. This may be ascribed to the fact that this portion 

 of the country was first most thickly settled and consequently 

 such a trouble would there be first noted. In the early part oi 

 this century, however, the disease had become more serious in 

 most of the regions in which it was first mentioned, and the ruin- 

 ous effects of its presence gradually became known in those sec- 

 tions which appear to have been free from the trouble at the time 

 the first settlements were made. It is not improbable that the 

 disease was first restricted to the country east of the Alleghany 

 mountains, although several of the plants upon which it is found 

 are native in the regions to the west. It appears that no serious 

 damage was done by the fungus in western orchards until the 

 number of its cultivated host plants had become sufficiently great 

 to allow of the rapid propagation and spread of the disease. In 

 some cases its presence could be traced directly to an eastern 

 source. 



In The Cultivator, for 1850, page 333, is the note that " Benja- 

 min Hodge, of Buffalo, N. Y. , who has raised and sold trees for 

 the past 30 years says he never -had this malady among his plum 

 trees till the present season, and that in the instance cited it was 

 introduced from the east." He further claimed that all the 

 affected trees came from stocks brought from Massachusetts. In 

 1879 the statement was made* that the knots were appearing 



* The Country Gentleman, vol. 44, p. 262. 



