Fire Blight of Pears, Apples, Quinces, Etc. 167 



old pear orchard. His orchard, when planted, consisted of 1,100 trees 

 of several varieties, including a large proportion of Bartletts. During 

 the two years prior to 1908, he had lost 100 of these trees by Blight. 

 Despairing of saving the remainder, he called on the College of Agri- 

 culture for advice. We visited his place in the early spring of 1908, 

 •examined his trees, and advised the above plan of operation. This 

 scheme he followed to the best of his ability, inspecting the orchard 

 once a week, removing and disinfecting the cuts, with the result that 

 the disease was controlled and a fine crop of pears saved, at a total cost 

 of only $30. By regular and frequent inspections, he was able to 

 detect and remove diseased blossom-spurs and blighted twigs before 

 any considerable injury was done. The total diseased wood cut from 

 his orchard that season could have been carried, he says, in one armful, 

 —this, of course, after the dead wood of the previous season had been 

 removed. 



During the summer of 1908, the same season in which Mr. Curtis so 

 successfully controlled the Blight in his orchard, the disease broke out 

 in epidemic form in the fine Bartlett pear orchards about Oswego, 

 N. Y. One of the growers, Mr. Ira Pease, having suffered heavy losses, 

 appealed to the Department of Plant Pathology for assistance in putting 

 his trees in shape and for controlling the malady in 1909. As indicated 

 in the introduction, a field laboratory was established at Mr. Pease's 

 place and a trained man, Mr. Mitchell, put in charge. His problem 

 was the removal of dead limbs and hold-over cankers, and the control 

 of the disease during the season by the methods above outlined. The 

 results were all that could be desired. Infections appeared in abundance 

 in many of the trees shortly after blossoms fell, but the diseased spurs 

 were promptly removed and no large limbs had to be cut out as a result 

 of new infections. Many of the old cankers, which had escaped notice 

 during the spring pruning, proved to be active and necessitated severe 

 cutting of a few of the trees during the season. By the end of August, 

 the Blight was practically eradicated from the orchard. There was 

 practically no loss of fruit as had been the case the previous season, 

 and but little of the growth of 1909 had to be removed. Considering 

 that one man had nearly twelve acres of pears to inspect, most of which 

 were Bartletts, and twenty to thirty years old, it is remarkable that he 

 controlled the disease so well. It is true the infections were not so 

 numerous as in 1908, some sections of the orchard showing very few 

 infections, but that they would have proved destructive had they not 

 been promptly removed is shown by the fact that an orchard just across 

 the road showed many blighted limbs by autumn. Mr. Brownell, a 



