STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 221 



twigs, but in such trees, and indeed, in all under certain conditions, the 

 diseased sap is carried downward into the larger branches and kills them, 

 and sometimes the whole tree. This most often happens to those highly 

 cultivated, growing in rich land. This disease will continue until late in 

 the season on trees pruned heavily, either in the fall, winter, or spring. 

 On the contrary, there are many causes which retard blight, such as non- 

 cultivation, drought, seediilg the ground under the trees to grass, over- 

 cropping, root-pruning, etc. In short, anything inducing early maturity, 

 or tending to arrest the rapid How of sap, will prevent this disease from 

 being disseminated through the tree.' VVe do not, in stating these several 

 checks, wish to be understood as recommending all as a means of protec- 

 tion, since some of them, if employed, would produce so much debility 

 that the trees would be of but little value for fruit. 



If you have been careful to obsei've the trees in your neighborhood, 

 which were losing their small branches by this blight, you, doubtless, 

 have seen that there was an abatement of the disease at the time the 

 current year's shoots began to develop their crown, or terminal buds. It 

 is also probable that you have noticed on some varieties — slow growers — 

 that the disease extended only through a few days, killing but a few 

 inches of the ends of the shoots. But when the malady descended to 

 the larger limbs, it has generally been supposed that the trees were suffer- 

 ing from another form of blight, when in reality the cases were identical, 

 varying only in extent. Persons who have not had to contend with 

 blight under varying conditions can hardly understand this, and are apt 

 to consider trees blighting only in the twigs, and those blighting down 

 into the large branches, affected differently. In localities where there is 

 no blight, it will make no difference, so far as inducing disease is con- 

 cerned, how severely the trees are pruned or highly they arc stimulated; 

 but where blight is present, much pruning, or extra cultivation, or any 

 treatment tending to prolong growth must be guarded against, or be 

 combined with some means whereby growth may be checked in time to 

 prevent sap, vitiated by blight, being circulated through the system of 

 the tree. 



To show the injurious eflects which severe pruning may have on tlie 

 health of trees where the twigs are diseased, we will cite one case out of 

 many of an orchard in the neighborhood of where we write : Some six 

 years since, a gentleman unaccustomed to the management of trees came 

 into possession of a proiluctive apple orchard, which was then about 

 fifteen years old. The new proprietor, after examining the condition of 

 his trees, decided that not less than three-fourths of the branches, large 

 and small, ought to be lopped off. Accordingly, early in the spring, our 

 new orchardist had his trees pruned to suit his own understanding of 

 their wants. In the month of May following, the blight in the twigs 

 appeared, but instead as in former years of being confined to the twigs 

 and small branches, it made its way further down than ever before. 

 Soon the trees were covered with water shoots. These ccjntinued to 

 grow to the end of the season, affording an active circulation of the sap, 

 whereby the poisonous impression of the blight-cells was carried down 



