112 AGRICULTURE OF MAINE 



hundred plant pathologists working on the problems of plant 

 diseases and their control. Already we have a fourth of that 

 number. We propose to train these young men, our growers 

 propose to assist in their training and to provide the financial 

 support to retain them for service in the State of New York. 

 We cannot afford to train them as we have in the past and 

 then send them West or East to work for our competitors. 

 We propose to keep them. 



If you care to have further information as to our methods 

 of conducting these cooperative investigations or to know 

 more of the results we have obtained I shall be glad to answer 

 your questions if I can. I thank you for the interest and con- 

 sideration you have shown in listening to what I have had to 

 offer you on this subject. 



Question: I had the pleasure of hearing Professor Whetzel 

 two years ago in New York when he discussed the question of 

 apple scab in a most lucid manner, and I wish he would take 

 just a few moments to take up direct treatment of the apple 

 scab, its original cause and manner of control. It is a little di- 

 gression from the subject and yet it is almost germane to it. 



Prof. Whet.zel: 1 shall be very glad of course to tell you 

 what little I know about apple scab and its control. The apple 

 scab is a fungous disease. A fungus is a plant which lives on 

 dead or living plants or animals. Now this fungus plant passes 

 the winter in old leaves of the apple on the ground. It pro- 

 duces what we call winter spores. They are produced in bags, 

 eight in a sack, and in the spring they are shot from those leaves 

 into the air. They are shot only during moist, rain}^ weather, 

 and their ripening is so timed that they are ripe just at the 

 time that the blossoms are about to open. That is to say, if 

 the blossoms open a week earlier in a given year, the spores 

 are ripe a week earlier, and if the blossoms open a week later 

 the spores are ripe a week later. The same weather conditions 

 which bring open the blossoms also ripen and bring about the 

 distribution of the spores. There is no object whatever in spray- 

 ing the trees when they are dormant for the control of apple 

 scab. The spores are not ripe or distributed at that period. If 

 they were distributed then there would be no place for them to 

 find an effective lodging, because they germinate after they 

 lodge, on the young leaves or young fruit. The first period at 



