Blight Canker of the Apple Tree. 



205 



and limbs for several years. Their statements were borne out by the ad- 

 vanced stage of decay of most of the cankered trees. The disease was 

 active in trees which had not yet succumbed, and reports from that section 

 showed that it was still at work in 1905. 



The three sections already described are, so far as I know, the only 

 places in which loss from the canker has been severe. An examination 

 of the young orchards about Ithaca show a large percentage of affected 

 trees, but as yet the disease has not occasioned serious losses. In an 

 orchard of about 350 trees which has been under observation throughout 

 the past season, about 85 per cent of the trees show cankers, while the 

 actual number of dead trees resulting from its attacks has not exceeded 

 five per cent. It is, on the other hand, a significant fact that a very large 



Fig. 83. — Orchard of Air. Henry Peck near Schuylerville, wliich originally con- 

 tained some 400 trees. They began to go out in 1903 and in June, 1905, less 

 than 50 trees were still alive. A very few of the 50 were entirely free from the 

 canker. 



proportion of this five per cent has died during the past summer. Reports 

 of what appear to be the same disease have come from other sections of 

 the State. 



The canker is not confined to this State alone. Reports and speci- 

 mens from different places indicate that it is more or less common in 

 New Jersey, Delaware, Kentucky, Kansas, Iowa and Wisconsin. What 

 is doubtless the same disease is also reported from Canada. In fact, it 

 is safe to say that wherever the " tzvig blight" form of the disease occurs, 

 the canker form on limbs and body is more or less common. A study of 

 horticultural and agricultural literature shows that the disease has been 

 destructive not only in nearly every apple-growing region of the United 

 States and Canada, but probably also in England,2i as well. 



