332 Report of the Horticulturist of the 



XXXIII, fig. 2.) In fact the Ncctrias have been associated with 

 such injuries so long that in some instances th|e word canker has 

 come to be regarded as a specific rather than a general term, but 

 other species of fungi may cause a cankered condition of trees and 

 plants. According to Ilartig such wounds may be produced by 

 the action of frost, when they are called frost cankers. In general, 

 then, it may be said that any injury of trees, whereby a portion 

 of the bark is destroyed and the wood laid bare may be classified 

 under the general term, canker. 



That the term canker, as applied to plant diseases, is new to 

 many of our fruit growers may be due to the fact that the Nedrias 

 are of but little economic importance in the United States. 



THE KEW YORK APPLE-TREE CANKER.^ — HISTORY. 



Orchardists have been familiar with this diseased condition of 

 the limbs of the apple tree for years. This is especially true 

 with the Esopus Spitzenberg, where the injury to the limbs, com- 

 monly thought to be due entirely to sun-scald, has been associated 

 with the apparent running out of this favorite apple. Atten- 

 tion was first called to the probability of this injury being caused 

 by a plant disease by M. B. Waite, of the U. S. Department 

 of Agriculture, Washington, D. C, in an article^ that was 

 read at the meeting of the Western ISTew York Horticultural 

 Society in 1898 and which appeared a few days later in the Rural 

 New YorJcer.^ Mr. Waite suggested the fungus Schizophyllum 

 commune Fr. as the probable cause of the disease. This article, 



1 The name of New York Apple-Tree Canker is proposed for this disease for 

 the purpose of distinguishing the canker produced by the attacks of the fungus 

 liphccropsis malorum, Pk. (see page 355) from cankers that are due to the 

 action of other fungi, as the Pacific Coast Apple-Tree Canker and the Euro- 

 pean Canker. 



2 Waite. Proceedings Western N. Y. Hort. Soc, 1898, pp. 9, 10. A brief 

 article, included in the report of the committee on botany and plant diseases, 

 notes prevalence of an apple-tree canker in orchards of Western New York. 



3 Waite. Rural New Yorker, Feb. 5, 1898, p. 82. 



