COUNTY REPORTS. 339 



FEANKLIN COUNTY. 



The failure of our apple orchards I attribute to root-blight, bitter- 

 rot and poor selections of orchard sites. 



Eoot-blight is the worst, and the best authority gives us no light 

 on the subject. My opinion is it is in the soil, as I find it on seepy 

 ridges, down the slopes covered with black oak and hickory growth. 

 Trees live only a few years, then rot at the roots while they are healthy 

 above ground. I find, in traveling ten years along the Meramec river, 

 that it is wide-spread, as also the bitter-rot, while on the ridges and on 

 Bourbor river slopes it is hardly known. 



My remedy is to dig a ditch one-half circle on the upper side of 

 the tree and fill in with rocks to drain off the water. Use sand and 

 gravel with well-rotted cow-manure in the holes when planting also. 



Bitter-rot is contagious, and some kinds are more subject to it 

 than others. It may be overcome by spraying with Bordeaux mixture. 

 Select high, dry soil, with rock mixed in the soil all the better, and with 

 a wind-break on the north and west. 



Would like to see a committee on new fruits appointed, to whom 

 all fruits could be referred before allowing them to be distributed. 



C. H. English, Sullivan. 



JASPER COUNTY. 



L. A. GooDMiN, Secretary : 



There is but little report to make. The Society still holds its meet- 

 ings on the last Saturday of each month. Those for January, February, 

 March and November were held in the city of Carthage; those for 

 April, May, June, July and August were held at homes of members. 

 In September and October no meetings were held. 



At the summer meeting premiums were offered for fruits and 

 ilowers. Good displays of flowers were made at each meeting, and 

 helped much to create a greater interest in them. But little fruit was 

 exhibited, for the reason that no one had it to exhibit, except a few 

 berries. Some of these were very fine. 



The fruit crop was almost an entire failure — the nearest so that 

 was ever known in this county, which used to be considered as espe- 

 cially adapted to the growth of superior fruits of all kinds. In 1890 



