168 Wisconsin State Horticultural Society. 



this is the decision of the United States chemist; you will find it 

 in the report for 1877. 



Mr. Hofer, of Iowa — I have watched this disease for years, and 

 I do not know that I am any wiser now than I was ten or fifteen 

 years ago; that it is no insect I am pretty sure. I was after that 

 bug or worm, or whatever you call it, for six years, and I never 

 could find any signs of it. I have one tree in my garden that is 

 never affected with the disease, while almost all the rest of the 

 apple trees suffered nearly every year; and lately I noticed that 

 this tree stands near a chimney where all the year round the 

 smoke goes over it. I don't know whether having the tree smoked 

 is of any consequence or not, still that tree is never affected, while 

 the other trees are. It has been my opinion for two years that the 

 hot rays of the sun striking the tree produce a kind of a sunstroke 

 in hot summer days. Blight generally comes after a very hot day; 

 a little rain follows, and the next day the blight is there. I believe 

 it is the hot rays of the sun which scald the tree through the bark. 

 That is my opinion. What to do for it I don't know. 



HOW TO RAISE GRAPES. 



A. F. HOFER, McGregor, Iowa. 



At the suggestion of Mr. Plumb, of Milton, I came here to tell 

 you what I know about grape raising. First, I will have to tell you 

 that I am no nurseryman. I do not raise grapes to sell or drink. 

 I raise them and eat them. I have a little vineyard in Iowa, and 

 last summer when I was editing a paper, I published some articles 

 on grape growing. The articles took so well all over the state that 

 I was induced to compile them into a book, and Mr. Plumb got 

 hold of one of those little books, and he wrote to me to come over. 

 I wrote back to him that I would come over and demonstrate to him 

 and to all of you something that many of you do not know about 

 grape raising. I was born and raised in the vineyard in Germany. 

 From my sixth to my twenty-sixth year I worked in it, twenty 

 years, and I believe it is the only business that I understand from 

 the bottom up. Here in this country, they told me at first that our 

 way in Germany would not work. I waited a good while before I 



