202 Wisconsin State Horticultural Society. 



cause of putrefaction. The first class of fungi may attack liv- 

 ing plants and animals, but the office of the class called bacteria 

 is to produce putrefaction in dead organized matter, and to de- 

 stroy it. They are found in decaying vegetable tissues, and 

 wherever putrefaction is going on. In the decaying cabbage 

 and the blighted tree. 



He cited certain facts in his experience which seemed to verify 

 these views in regard to the cause of mildew and blight. In the 

 spring of 1S80, he grafted a part of a row of crab apple trees, 

 cutting back the tops to about one-third their size. The trees 

 stood in a row about four feet apart. The trees thus cut back 

 blighted severely, the others not at all. The same season a 

 neighbor grafted five crab trees, cutting off all tlie limbs. The 

 grafts started and grew nicely and did not blight at all, doubt- 

 less because the circulation was entirely stopped, and when the 

 season for blight came there was no superabundance of sap in 

 the tree to blight. While in the trees where a portion of the 

 tops were left on, the circulation was forced into the diminished 

 top Avith such power as to force the sap through the pores. He 

 had also placed ligatures of wire around limbs of trees where 

 there was blight; the limbs thus bound did not blight, while the 

 rest did. He knew of no remedy or preventive, but to keep 

 down the temperature of the soil, and secure a slow, constant 

 growth, and to guard against any extraordinarily rapid growth. 



PKESENT AND FUTUKE OF HOKTICULTURE IN 



WISCONSIN. 



J. C. Plumb, Milton. 



Horticulture in its several departments of fruit growing, tree 

 growing, flower culture and gardening, is so intimately connected 

 with the every-day life of our advanced civilization, that its 

 value must be estimated by other than a money standard. To 

 one class the several products of our art are looked upon as lux- 

 uries, to be indulged in when the condition of the purse will 

 allow. To another class they are necessities of life, active agents 



