By Destructive Disease 



in Thirteen States and in Canada 

 Valued at $260,000,000 



in Preventing Its Spread 



bushes and pine seedlings at nurseries, and their investi- 

 gations have reached a point which now leaves no doubt of 

 the grave danger of the disease or of the fact that it has 

 already spread sufficiently to make the danger imminent. 



The Massachusetts State Board of Agriculture recently 

 invited State Forestry officials of adjoining states and gov- 

 ernment officials to meet at Fall River, Massachusetts, for 

 the purpose of observing the effect 

 of the blister rust on native pines 

 in that locality, and to discuss 

 methods of checking the spread of 

 the disease. 



Throughout all of this summer, it 

 developed at the conference, scout 

 work has been done in the six New 

 England States and in New York, 

 New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, 

 which showed that in Maine, New 

 Hampshire, Vermont, Massachu- 

 setts, Rhode Island, and Connecti- 

 cut, the blister rust disease is al- 

 ready thoroughly estabHshed on 

 both imported and native trees. In 

 certain sections of eastern New 

 York and in portions of New Jersey 

 and Pennsylvania, it has gained a 

 foothold. 



The result of the conference was 

 that a committee representing the 

 states of New York, New Hamp- 

 shire, Vermont, Massachusetts and 



Rhode Island took immediate action in issuing a warning 

 to the pubUc which concludes with the following statement : 



"The currant and gooseberry bushes in large areas 

 throughout New England states and eastern New York are 

 now infected with the blister rust in the stage when it re- 

 turns to the white pine, and the immediate removal of cur- 

 rant and gooseberry bushes is necessary to save our white 

 pine trees." 



The United States Department of Agriculture, through 

 the office of Forest Pathology, is cooperating in scouting 

 for the blister rust in practically all the states where white 

 pine is an important native tree. At the present time, 

 scouting has been completed in but two states— Maine and 

 New Jersey. 



Seven points of infection were found in New Jersey ; in 

 five instances blister rust infection was found in commer- 



WHERE THE WHITE PINE BLIS- 

 TER RUST HAS BEEN LOCATED 



MAINE 



NEW HAMPSHIRE 



VERMONT 



MASSACHUSETTS 



RHODE ISLAND 



CONNECTICUT 



NEW YORK 



PENNSYLVANIA 



NEW JERSEY 



OHIO 



INDIANA 



WISCONSIN 



MINNESOTA 



PROVINCES OF 



QUEBEC CANADA 



OTTAWA CANADA 



cial nurseries, the remaining two cases being stock from 

 the infected nurseries. 



The situation in Maine is much more serious. The rust 

 fungus has been found generally prevalent on currants and 

 gooseberries from the extreme southwestern corner of 

 Maine, about Kittery, to Bar Harbor, and throughout the 

 territory northward to Rangeley, Greenville, and MilU- 

 nocket. Wild growths of currants 

 and gooseberries are found practi- 

 cally over the entire state on the 

 roadsides, pastures, fields, swamps 

 and rocky hillsides and compara- 

 tively level forest land. 



Infected pines were found at Bar 

 Harbor, Bath, Lewiston, Riverton 

 Park near Portland, and Kittery. 



There are enough wild gooseber- 

 ries and currants in the State to 

 carry the blister rust to every pine 

 tree, and sweep out of existence the 

 white pine forests of the state. 

 What this means is evident when it 

 is considered that white pine in the 

 state is second in value to spruce; 

 that the lumber it produces repre- 

 sents almost nine per cent of all the 

 white pine in the United States. 



The rust has also been discovered 

 at nurseries on gooseberries and 

 currants and white pine seedlings in 

 other New England States, Penn- 

 sylvania, New York, Ohio, Indiana and in plantings of 

 white pine in Wisconsin and in Minnesota, and there is 

 practically no doubt but that the disease is making steady 

 progress in all of the states mentioned in this article. 



New York State has taken firm hold of the white pine 

 blister rust problem in an endeavor to prevent the spread 

 of the disease from the badly infected western part of 

 Massachusetts. For this purpose an emergency loan of 

 $15,000 was authorized in August by Governor Whitman 

 and thirty-five men under the supervision of the State 

 Department of Agriculture and the Conservation Commis- 

 sion were set at work in Columbia County creating an 

 immune zone two miles wide along the Massachusetts bor- 

 der by digging up and destroying all gooseberry and cur- 

 rant bushes, both wild and cultivated. 



