Summer Meeting. 49 



Kieffer patch, which made the heavy bark on the trunks and limbs 

 a mass of wounds, into which the blight found ready entrance. 

 Practically all twig infections in the Kieffer die during the sum- 

 mer, and their damage is slight; but, when the infection gets into 

 the trunk, it is the tree that dies. Several varieties which I have 

 in trial planting have never blighted at all, but I also have several 

 hundred Kieffers that never have blighted either. 



The authorities tell us to cut out and destroy every affection 

 as soon as it appears. With young trees this should by all means 

 be done, as, if every one is taken out, as it can be, and your neigh- 

 bors have none, your problem is mastered. In later years, cut out 

 the first infections as they appear, in the hope of heading off the 

 attack. You may do it, but the chances are dozens to one against 

 you. The poison sap has oozed from the twig hours before any 

 discoloration was visible, and the insects have had their fill and 

 done their destructive, though yet invisible, work. If the infection 

 gets away from you, let it run. If you keep cutting off the infected 

 twigs, you start a new growth which will furnish a feeding ground 

 for the blight all summer, and at lower points on your branches, 

 thus endangering large limbs. Note this, however: Tear out all 

 watersprouts from the trunk and large limbs, and plug up the holes 

 with tar. These soft yellow water sprouts are very likely to be- 

 come infected, and, owing to their abundant sap flow, carry the 

 blight within a few hours to the trunk, where nothing can be done 

 for it. 



When fall comes, however, a thorough clearing out should be 

 made of all infected wood and bark areas. On the young wood it 

 is easy to tell where the infection is dead, by the sharp dividing 

 line between the live and dead bark. Where such line does not 

 appear, cut back six inches or a foot in the live wood. Where the 

 bark is four years old or more, though, the dividing line, however 

 distinct, cannot be depended upon as a safe guide, as in the spongy 

 bark the infection may have passed the dividing line and be several 

 inches beyond it, or even have the whole trunk infected. All in- 

 struments in use in cutting pear trees should be kept constantly 

 wet with an antiseptic solution ; one part of carbolic acid to twenty 

 of water is good. 



As to the insects, of them we still have much to learn. Bees, 

 of course, carry infection from flower to flower, but I do not be- 

 lieve they are ever responsible for its original introduction to the 

 flowers. The tarnished plant-bug is likely guilty sometimes, al- 



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