174 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 



plus moisture. The only thing I had in mind was my own place, which 

 does not need that. It is dry, sandy land, and two or three days after the 

 frost is out I can cultivate. In clay soil that would be a decided ad- 

 vantage, while with me it w^ould be a disadvantage. These are things 

 each must decide for himself. 



DISEASES OF THE APPLE. 



BY DR. W. J. BEAL, MICHIGAN AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE. 



In a certain sense an apple tree may be said to be diseased if it fails 

 to thrive in consequence of a soil which is too wet or too dry or too thin, 

 or where the roots are struggling amid a close sod of grasses or clovers, 

 or any kind of sown grain. It may be struggling almost between life 

 and death because of damage inflicted in winter by severe cold, or it 

 may be almost bored to death by beetles in the trunk, or the young 

 branches may be nearly smothered by bark-lice. The leaves and the fruit 

 may be damaged by the scab, or the twigs and leaves blighted by a 

 microbe. I suppose I am expected to speak of diseases caused by fungi. 



I hardly n^ed to tell people in this audience who read bulletins of 

 experiment stations and horticultural reports, that a fungus is a plant 

 as much as the tree or shrub that it thrives upon. A tree is produced 

 by a seed, the fungus by a minute spore. The tree or any other plant 

 fed upon by a fungus, is known as the host plant. 



You have all heard of the Western New York Horticultural society as 

 one of the largest and most famous in the world. In October, 1895, they 

 appointed a committee on plant diseases, and this committee put out 

 a circular to gather informatioa concerning plant diseases. In this 

 circular only three diseases of the apple were enumerated, viz.: First, 

 pear-blight or fire-blight or twig-blight; second, scab; third, powdery 

 mildew. 



Really, over two hundred kinds of fungi have at one time or another 

 been found to attack the apple tree, its leaves, flowers, or fruits. 



I remember somewhere to have seen a representation of a large apple 

 with the surface on one side marked off into little blocks or fields, assign- 

 ing a separate area to a single fungus. No apple could furnish room 

 enough for a twentieth part of the kinds of fungi which somewhere or 

 at some time have been found on the fruit. 



To me this is a most fascinating subject, but the details are so small 

 that I do not flatter myself I shall arouse much enthusiasm at this time, 

 with a talk on fungi. I will be brief, show you a few pictures, and 

 skirmish lightly around the edges of the field, hoping to arouse the 

 curiosity of some of the youngest persons here present. 



I have on the table a few plates of apples that some of you may think 

 hardly Avorth premiums, but I hope they will yet prove instructive. It 

 is rather difiicnlt, I may say very difiicult. to collect specimens that are 

 infested in a conspicuous manner by a single fungus only. In these cases 

 before you, I have been reasonably successful. The study is not a very 

 easy one, I find, even for the most advanced students in the senior class 



