51G Bt)ARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



Mr. Hobbs: None but just to cut away the diseased part back to the 

 sound tissue; and 4.heu, if the little bacteria will be so kind as to keep 

 away and not enter the circulation again, it will be all right. But they 

 will not. And the trees that make a rapid, succulent growth are the ones 

 most alfected. The KeilTer has been emperor of this fruit for some time, 

 but it is getting a black eye this year, for trees of succulent growth are 

 more susceptible to this disease. It seems there must be an active circu- 

 lation to enable this disease to get a foothold. The bacteria enter through 

 these soft tissues, and when the weather is soft and warm the conditions 

 are niore favorable for the bacteria to enter the circulation. They also 

 enter Avhen the trees are in bloom. 



Mr. Stanton: I want to suggest that instead of the Garber I think the 

 Duchess is much better to use as a fertilizer— the dwarf Duchess. I have 

 a pear orchard of some twenty-five hundred trees, nine or ten years old, 

 and my Garbers did not begin bearing for three or four years after the 

 Keiffer began, and that would be very objectionable if that were the case 

 in other places. But I really think the Duchess is more desirable anyhow. 



Mr. Mitchell: Mr. Hobbs, is it not a fact that the State Horticultural 

 Society years ago settled down upon the fact that root pruning would 

 overcome this blight? 



Mr. Hobbs: No, sir. That question has never been settled. It is up 

 for discussion tonight. 



Mr. Mitchell: Wasn't that the opinion of the State Horticultural Soci- 

 ety, that root pruning was the remedy? 



Mr. Hobbs: I do not think the Society ever went on record as to that. 



Mr. Mitchell: Well, I have heard some of the old pioneers of the 

 Society of a good many years ago talk this over, and they said it was the 

 opinion of the Society that root pruning would overcome this disease. 



Mr. Hobbs: That was before my day. 



Mr. Mitchell: Well, isn't that the idea? 



Mr. Hobbs: I presume there may be something in the idea of checking 

 the growth for the blight; but I wish to say that there is nothing in fruit 

 growing which looks so dark to me as this question of blight in pears. 

 The Department at Washington has been at work on this question for sev- 

 eral years, and has been able only to tell what it is, how it is propagated, 

 and that the best remedy we know of is in pruning; but that is not very 

 profitable. 



Mr. Thomas: I have an idea that right thorough pruning in the late 

 spring might check the disease and lessen the susceptibility of the trees. 



