STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 45 



our preeenl mode of making pear-trees, and in our variable climate, probably few pear 

 trees can be found a dozen years old, that, in aU thek fibres, are perfectly sound from 

 stem to Stern. Hence the nidus for these .-porulcs in the case of pear trees is almost 



always present, and in some seasons it is only with the greatest care and watchfulness 

 that they can be kept from flaring abroad up Into the tops of the tree, which in nine 

 cases out of ten, it Is sure to kill down to the place of the original surface nidus on the 

 bark or the roots below; if nut arrested before the sap flows, with the knife, or the 

 spirits of turpentine and lamp black, or something else that will kill out the Bporules. 

 Dr. Salisbury, in the paper above referred to, recommends sulphur and the sulphites and 

 sulphates and common gas-lime, either mixed with the soil or applied to the tree, for the 

 same purpose. I have li>r several years myself taken one or two pailfulls <d' stale cham- 

 berley and soap suds, from a vault in which it is poured, and dashed it up, early in the 

 Bpring, on the trunks and large Limbs of the pear-trees which stand nearest to the house ; 

 and those tree- have thus far escaped the blight, though one or two of them were badly 

 in the habit of blighting before. But such short-lived experiments furnish no data for 

 any Anal conclusion, except that it seems good for the trees in someway. Of course 

 solid animal manure, on rich prairie soil, or any other conditions that tend toward the 

 engorgement and plethora of the sap in midsummer and tail, are dangerous. But the 

 effect of this liquid manure soon passe- away and stimulates the growth only in the 

 early Bpring, when it is an advantage rather than an injury. Some years ago I had two 

 Baldwin apple trees injured by the cold weather, but they seemed entirely to recover: 

 their fruit, however, would never keep in those years when these fungous blights abound, 

 not even till we could gather and cat or sell them in the fall ; they would even rot on 

 the trees, and rot on the ground under the trees ; while my other Baldwin trees did not 

 do so. I could not surmise the cause. At length the wind broke a limb off from one of 

 them and showed me its condition; the heart of it was all rotten. Shortly after the 

 breaking off of this limb one of the largest fungi I ever saw, some 8 inches across, grew 

 out of the broken and rotten place. I let it grow and perish there. I never before saw 

 a fungus of that sort on or near the place. I cut down one of these trees as worthless, 

 burned up the limbs for fuel about one year ago; apart of the unusable trunk was 

 thrown under the Bhade of some evergreens where it was kept moist and out of the sun. 

 It was about live feet long and a loot through; its whole surface soon became so per- 

 fectly covered with fungus growth, that you could not touch a pin's point to any part 

 of the hark or rotten wood without pricking through a fungus. I have brought down a 

 chip from this tree-trunk to exhibit as a Bpecimen of this fungus growth, and to enquire 

 If any one ever saw anything like it before. (Apology for forgetting it.) 

 Now all this show- what all knew before, the natural aptitude of fungoid growths for 



rotten wood, or decayed vegetable matter of any sort. Hem new broken prairies 



full of (fad grass roots and their centuries of accumulated bumus, the nidus of these 



Cryptogams U found on all hand- over thou -and- of acres. Hence these blights and rots 

 of all sort- are mucb more severe in SUCb conditions than on the more exhausted lands 

 in older settlements ; for probably these fungi will grow in more t hat e sort of decayed 



matter upon a pinch — just as some insects, and some men too, will continue to hold 

 over and hold on, upon a diet not quite their first choice. If this be true we may every 

 where expect less Of the pear blight as the soil becomes older and more worn. 



Now, I cannot prove that the fungus which SO often destroyed those Baldwin apples, 

 had its nidus in the rotten trunk of the tree ; but still I cannot resist the impression that 



