86 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



I have at the same time liberally used wood ashes sometimes 

 mixed with common salt for fertilizers. While ia one or two cases 

 trees were considerably injured by the blight, in ten years I have never 

 lost a tree, and in the last two or three years of cultivation of the or- 

 chard with which I had most to do no signs of blight were visible. I 

 should add, however, that my experience has been in Massachusetts 

 and New York, not in Missouri. 



But Mr. Waite, in the report already alluded to, holds that trees 

 highly manured with barnyard manure and other nitrogenous feitilizers 

 are especially liable to the disease, and that overstimulation with fertil- 

 izers is to be avoided. My own theory is that potash tends to stimu- 

 late fruit, but thiX barnyard manure tends to great growth of wood. 



Mr. Waite also thinks that pruning in winter time increases tend- 

 ency to blight since it pushes the tree to make a great growth of wood 

 which is tender and so nourishes the microbe. Much tillage has the 

 same effect, says Mr. Waite, and he suggests that plowing between 

 the trees early in the spring and then seeding or sowing to grain, or 

 else plowing the middle of the space between the rows, will produce 

 the whole, the best results. Every tree of the Pome family is liable 

 to the blight. Pears are effected most, but the quince, apple, crab- 

 apple, mountain ash, and all the hawthorns are found with it. 



The only sure remedy is cutting and burning diseased branches. 

 This should be done in the fall before the leaves grow dry, then early 

 in the spring as soon as the blossoms appear, and again at intervals of 

 two or three weeks through the summer. Never allow an inch of a dis- 

 eased twig to remain for an hour on the tree. Eternal vigilance is the 

 only method of success. 



Homer T. Fuller, President Drury College, Springfield, Mo. 



DISCUSSION ON PEACHES. 



By Mr. Murray — The Champion suits me best ; had three bushels 

 to the tree last year, and have good crop this year. It is a free stone. 

 As a rule the yellow varieties are not so hardy in fruit or wood as the 

 white. The old Smock has made me the most money of the yellow 

 varieties. It is no trouble to' sell peaches in North Missouri at 50 

 cents to $1.50 per bushel. Men come from Iowa with wagons for the 

 fruit. 



By Sec. Goodman — I would not grow a single one of the earliest 

 varieties. Plant Mountain Rose, E.irly York, Family Favorite, Elberta, 

 Salwayand Mixen, which ripen in the order named, giving a season 

 up to October. Have a succession of varieties and have an under- 



