INDIANA HOKTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 361 



grew to be models of health aud form. I took pride in them and in- 

 spected them almost every day; but, alas! upon making my usual rounds 

 a few days ago, I observed a few leaves here and there that were black- 

 ened, and upon closer inspection found that this dread disease had fas- 

 tened upon them. 



To most of them I applied the only knowTi remedy (which is no 

 remedy at all, but only a rather doubtful mode of preventing the spread 

 of the disease), aud cut down seme that were wholly affected, and 

 maimed and disfigured the remainder for life. No one, unless he has had 

 experience, can enter into my feelings of loss and disappointment. 



I felt like crying aloud, "A kingdom for a remedy," but echo an- 

 swered, "No remedy." We can at most, assume a masterful inactivity and 

 let the destroyer do his worst work. Under such conditions one's feelings 

 and language are apt to be intemperate. However, we think that we are 

 waiTanted in asking very earnestly, "What are our experiment stations 

 doing in the direction of finding a remedy for this dread disease? Are 

 they at work on this? If not, why not, and why don't they put some one 

 or ones at work and persistently, courageously and eternally run it 

 down?" Let them stay at it. Don't sit down and content yourself by 

 rehearsing what others have done, but turn up new earth! Keep at 

 it until a preventative or a remedy is known, or at least something 

 definite." 



I said that this disease has been known for centuries. Downing says 

 that Duhamel, a French horticulturist, in 1768 noticed and described a dis- 

 ease of the pear tree similar to the blight. 



When it first occurred in America I am not informed, but several 

 noted horticulturists have given it some attention here. Downing con- 

 siders the disease under two heads: First, insect blight; and, second, 

 frozen sap blight. The former, he says, is caused by an insect which he 

 very minutely describes as depositing an egg behind or below the bud. 

 The following spring the egg hatches and a small worm bores into the 

 branch to the center and then makes a circular canal around the pith, 

 cutting off the flow of the ascending sap, which causes the twig to wither 

 and die. His preventative is to cut and burn the affected parts. This is 

 eviedntly what we call twig blight. 



The fi-ozen sap blight, he says, is caused by frozen sap. and he ex- 

 jilains tlip action as follows: "In every tree there are two currents of sap 

 —the upward current, which ascends through the outer wood to be 

 ■digested by the leaves, and the downward, which descends through the 

 inner bark. Anterior to a blight season a very sudden and early winter 

 follows a damp and warm autumn. The summer being dry. the growth 

 is checked prematurely, but the warmth and dampness of fall starts a 

 vigorous growth, and a sudden freeze coming on while the sap vessels are 

 filled with their fluids, the descending sap becomes frozen and tliick and 

 clammy, and chokes up the sap vessels. Through succeeding freezes and 



