iNDIANA HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. M? 



1 do uot know. I thought of shearing my trees square off, taking off the 

 whole top, next spring. They are going to die anyhow, and I might as 

 well try it. 



Chairman Latta: Mr. Stanton, are you in the same predicament in 

 your State? 



Mr. Stanton: Yes. I think the gentleman will run no risk in cutting 

 off the tops of his trees. He ought to have been doing that all tlie time. 



Dr. Wolfe: Is it not a fact that in these large orchards your cutting 

 out of the diseased part is imperfectly done, and you leave enough to keep 

 the disease going? 



Mr. Stanton: Yes, I think that is true. 



Dr. Wolfe: I have had some experience with a few trees that I have, 

 and I have cut severely and overcome the disease. I think in large 

 orcliards where the pruning is imperfectly done, that is responsible for the 

 failures. My opinion is that severe cutting would remedy the matter. 



Mr. Hobbs: Mr. Blue's farm north of Indianapolis has a large Keiffer 

 pear orchard that had borne successfully and was in a good state of 

 health. He planted the trees sixteen or eighteen feet apart, and he plants 

 raspberries, etc., between, and he found as time went on that the trees 

 were too close; but some years before he had planted some Comet and 

 Early Harvest and one or two other fruits susceptible to the blight, and 

 these had begun to blight considerably. About this time he began pruning 

 his Keiffers, and thus exposed the surface to the blight, and from that 

 time on his trees have been blighted almost every year; so I would say 

 the loss pruning that is done the better, because it exposes this surface, 

 and when 1 pruned I would coat the wound with something to cover it. 



Chairman Latta: May there not be a coincidence here— tlie less rapid 

 the growth, the less pruning required, and, as has been said, the less 

 rapid the growth the less danger there is of the blight? • 



Mr. Hobbs: Yes, that is very likely. 



Chairman Latta: Have you anything touching this point. Professor 

 Troop? 



Prof. Troop: Notliing definite. There is no particular remedy for this 

 bliglit. I know this bliglit can be spread and doubtless Is spread largely 

 by pruning— that is, by cutting off "the branches where the blight exists, 

 getting the germs on the knife and cutting off another branch and com- 

 municating the disease to that brancli; so the remedy tlioro is worse than 

 the disease. It can be spread in that way througli the knife. 



