1GG Wisconsin State Horticultueal Society. 



up every tree it came in contact with. It looked as though a fire 

 had been through there, it attacked plum trees, apple trees, 

 European mountain ash and native ash, and then struck for a space 

 of about four feet where it had to pass through between thick rows of 

 what some term service or June berry, and burned the leaves on each 

 side. Some of the branches were about killed or entirely so; then it 

 had from six to eight hundred yards to go, in order to get to the or- 

 chard. As it went on, it never touched a tree outside of a strip of 

 about ten feet wide; just went on, taking everything in its way, 

 showing to my mind very conclusively that it was an air current. All 

 the phenomena that are found anywhere were present in my orchard;, 

 some trees were burned, some were blotched, and others girdled in all 

 forms. Other orchards I have seen blighted in a similar way. As 

 for varieties, I had four trees of one variety standing where the 

 blight had been all around them, and not a leaf of them had I ever 

 discovered hurt when the blight was on the premises before, but 

 this year they were injured. They stood in the corner of the or- 

 chard, and there was blight not more than thirty or forty feet away 

 in the corner of another orchard, back of them. Finally, an air 

 current appears to have run through between the corners of the 

 two orchards, and striking the trees in the corner of each orchard, 

 pretty much entirely ruined those four trees that had stood so long 

 unharmed. As to its being insects, 1 do not think it could have 

 been possible, or, if it is, those insects float with air currents. 



For my part, I believe it to be a disease nearly akin to cholera, 

 and as hard to fight. Certainly you can apply no remedy that you 

 can depend upon more than you can for the cholera. Here is a tree 

 that may be attacked one season and never touched again, with 

 blight all around it. Another tree that has escaped may be blighted 

 another season, and the former one be left untouched. The blight 

 is first known to have visited America about thirty years ago; at 

 least it is just about thirty years ago that I saw the first signs of it. 

 It ran a few years, but did little damage to anything but pear treesj- 

 showed a little on the apples. It was followed by the cholera, and 

 it is a remarkable fact that the blight came from Asia, according to 

 the history we have of it. It is a disease that starts out from 

 Asia; so does the cholera, It passed away when the cholera 

 passed away; at least very few symptoms of it were left. The 

 second time the blight came out of Asia and passed over Europe, it 



