Blight Caxker of the Apple Tree. 



203 



witness to the destructiveness of the malady. The severe winters of 

 1902-3 and 1903—4 no doubt seriously affected the vitality of the trees, 

 rendering them especially susceptible to attacks of the blight organism. 

 The constant occurrence of the cankers indicate, however, that they were 

 the chief factors in the death of the trees. No dead or dying trees in 

 the young orchards were found that did not show cankers. Aloreover, 

 trees were observed here and there that bore no trace of canker and were 

 apparently healthy and vigorous but showed upon examination the black- 

 ened cambium region due to freezing. In one orchard of originally some 

 400 trees (Fig. 83) which began to go out in 1903, less than 50 were still 

 alive in June, 1905, and but a very few of these were entirely free from 



Fig. 81. — Body canker cleaned out, treated and paintedabout 

 eight weeks after treatment. Good, healthy calluses formed, 

 which, with proper care, will completely heal this wound. 



the canker. The old orchards in this section have also suffered consider- 

 ably from this same malady, and pear trees have almost entirely gone out. 

 In the region about Kirkville and Chittenango in the northern 

 part of Onondaga and Madison counties, a condition almost identical 

 with that in the Hudson River region exists. The young orchards, while 

 fewer in number, have suffered almost total destruction from this canker. 

 The old trees in this section do not seem to have suffered to any con- 

 siderable extent as yet. The disease appears to have become epidemic 

 in this locality at about the same time as in the Hudson River region. 

 In neither of these sections were many active cankers observed in 1905. 



