Miscellaneous. 345 



notice projecting masses of excrement, or of comminuted bark 

 about the tree. With a small trowel make a shallow trench around 

 the tree — if you have not already made one in looking for borers — 

 put on the wrapper and level the earth around it. I have used sal 

 soda solution, already mentioned, with most excellent results when 

 I was late with the digging-out process, and was afraid the eggs 

 had already been laid. The solution is easily put on by means of 

 a compressed air hand sprayer. One man with such an apparatus 

 can spray the trunks and larger limbs of several hundred trees per 

 day. 



The peach tivig borer is considered on the Pacific coast and in 

 Colorado one of the three or four worst insect pests with which they 

 have to contend. They winter in peculiar chambers situated in 

 the crotches of the branches,but leave these in the spring to enter 

 the new shoots. At this time they are nearly grown, and can easily 

 bore into the shoots of new leaves and kill the growing terminals. 

 This, of course, checks the growth, and a few of them will suffice to 

 produce an irregular and knotty tree. We should watch this borer. 

 In this connection, I wish to speak of gumming of such trees as the 

 peach, the cherry and the plum, called Gummosis. The gum-flow 

 may follow injuries by cuts, bruises, attacks by insects, especially 

 borers, and may be produced by some fungi. A dose of too-long- 

 single-tree, or too much pruning at time of active tree growth, will 

 cause this disintegration of the affected tissues. But no matter 

 what the cause of the gumming, the growth of the tree is checked, 

 and should be at once scraped off and removed. 



Ill — SOME UNCLASSIFIED DISEASES. 



Possibly only a few of us, if indeed any, have experimental 

 knowledge of the three or four diseases that now follow. If so, we 

 should post up at once, for they are destructive. 



1. Croivn Gall and Root Knot. — While this disease is the best 

 known of any in this division of my paper, I greatly fear it is not 

 appreciated as it deserves to be. Knots of various sizes, irregular 

 in form, rough on surface, soft and spongy within, have been ob- 

 served upon peach, plum, pear, cherry, apricot and apple. These 

 are much like the galls on the raspberry and blackberry, and on 

 many other trees, but that they are caused by the same organism 

 has not yet been shown. Sometimes they occur on the trunk above 

 the crown, but in all cases they are detrimental, and, when formed 

 at the crown, the tree is worthless. No remedy is known. Be cer- 

 tain that you do not plant affected trees or good trees in soil known 



