108 TRANSACTIONS OF THE ILLINOIS 



have been planted during the last two years ; and perhaps as many apple trees have 

 been planted, but not in so large quantities by any individual. As a rule, more atten- 

 tion is being given to fruit culture now than ever before. 



" I cannot give any definite information concerning the raspberry worm. As yet, 

 no practical remedy has been found to prevent their destroying the vines, but they need 

 to be looked after. 



" The peculiarities of the weather of the past year have been, the warmth of the 

 winter and the wetness of the summer. Premature development of buds was the result 

 of the very mild winter, and rot of the moist atmosphere of summer. The stone fruits 

 very generally perished in the bud. Pears, currants and gooseberries were, to a large 

 extent, destroyed while in bloom. Some of the apples, the strawberry, raspberry, black- 

 berry and grape, were more fortunate in this respect ; but the apple and grape were much 

 damaged by wet, and the consequent defoliation and rot. Altogether, it has been a year 

 of unfruitfulness in many kinds of fruit, and of devastation and decay in others. Add 

 to this low prices of fruits and the deterioration of trees, and the discouragement and 

 gloom of the last few years is not diminished. 



" But when we remember that our fruit-growers have no monopoly of the ' hard 

 times,' but that these prevail throughout all branches of production, and even to some 

 extent in trade and transportation, we do not feel like advising the fruit-grower to aban- 

 don his efforts. Of course, he will never make as large an average profit as the dealer, 

 the transporter or the banker, unless, in common with the agricultural and other produc- 

 ing classes, he rises in intelligence and force of will, so far as to insist on radically 

 different commercial and political relations to the world about him from those now spun 

 around him by more cunning, powerful and unscrupulous men than he. But, as com- 

 pared with the corn-grower, the wheat-grower and the cotton-grower, the fruit-grower is 

 still getting on tolerably well. The ordinary farmer is getting but low wages for his 

 labor, and small interest on his capital. The fruit-grower suffers in common with the 

 farmer, and boih, in common with all producers, are taxed heavily to maintain, if pos- 

 sible, ten per cent, dividends on the watered slock of railways ; to sustain protection on 

 manufacturers' patent rights on machines, and copyright on their reading — if they read. 

 ' All wealth comes from the soil.' There are only $30,000,000,000 to be divided among 

 40,000,000 of people, which is $750 each. If Vanderbilt must have ^7,500,000 of this 

 wealth, then 9,999 people must live on what they earn from day to day, and have no 

 more ; and many thousands more must work to pay their share of his ' legal' interest. 

 So, as fruit-growers, let us thank God that we are not as other clod-crushers, and that we 

 give tithes of all we possess to the god Mammon, and so escape. But to return. 



" In Southern Illinois, the marked feature of the season has been the prevalence 

 of the so-called bitter rot. I have taken some pains to inquire after this disease of the 

 apple, but must confess that my present information concerning it is vague and unsatis- 

 factory. I have found no notice of it in any of the fruit books, except that of Dr. 

 Warder, who quotes a description by H. N. Gillet, of Laurence county, Ohio, as 

 follows : 



" ' The disease generally presents itself on the skin of the apple in very minute 

 brown spots, from one to a dozen or more in number, generally after the fruit is pretty 

 well grown. These gradually spread and penetrate the flesh of the apple, producing a 

 black rot, almost as bitter as aloes ; but this taste is confined to the discolored por- 

 tion. The fruit ceases growing, and falls prematurely. The rot occasionally begins at 

 the centre, and extends outwards, so that the fruit appears sound for some time.' 



" I suppose this to be at least one of the forms of the disease known as bitter rot. 

 Dr. Warder quotes another authority giving a somewhat different form ; and in the 

 monthly reports of the Department of Agriculture for April and May, 1874, Mr. Taylor 

 describes some apples received from Arkansas, where the disease may have been of a 

 kindred character, but is attributed to a special lack of needed constituents in the 

 growth — a cause not much suggested as yet. 



" Whatever the true characteristics of the disease, it seems to have a place and 

 name for many years. A correspondent from Crawford county, in this State, wrote to 

 the editor of the Prairie Farmer, asking him to check it, thirty years ago, and his 



