180 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 



the spores these fleshy, orange-colored arms fall off, but the central ball 

 which supported them usually remains alive and makes further growth 

 during the summer, and the next spring is ready to put forth a new set 

 of arms that bear the spores. This fungus has two hosts or two dwell- 

 ings. It lives on the cedar in winter and early spring (and in fact the 

 year round), and a form lives on the leaves of the apple from spring to 

 summer. For a long time no botanist mistrusted this condition of things, 

 and the fungus on the apple received one name and the fungus on the 

 red cedar another name. 



Powdery mildew of the cherry and apple (Podospluvra oxiicantlue [D. C] 

 D. By.) This fungus thrives on young growth, the tender branches and 

 leaves, and troubles nursery stock more than older trees in the orchard. 

 The mildew is found on the surface of the parts affected, giving them a 

 white color. It is a shallow feeder, gathering food by use of little bunchy 

 suckers pushed into the outer cells, known as the epidermis of the plant. 

 The conidia or summer spores are white and delicate, and produced by 

 erect stems from the mildew. All these are expected to perish at the 

 close of the growing season; but the mildew is not to be frozen out by 

 death to its summer spores, for it produces another sort which are well 

 clothed with thick coat and overcoat, well padded and lined. 



This brown spherical body (perithecium) with its numerous arms, each 

 terminating, in a queer-shaped, branching appendage which anchors the 

 thing to the host plant, contains a light-colored sack (ascus) here repre- 

 sented, and in the ascus are eight spores snugly packed away to be ready 

 for growing trees in spring. Pov>'dered sulphur is the standard remedy, 

 and ammoniacal carbonate of copper. 



Fly-speck {Leptothi/riiiiii Pomi [Mont, et Fr.] Sacc.) (Lahrella Pom). 

 There are many low forms of plant life that wander about on the surface 

 of an apple, disfiguring its rosy cheek, especially in moist seasons. Hap- 

 pily the cuticle of an apjde is pretty thick and waxy and quite imi)ervi(»us 

 to trifles; but, like hungry wolves, these numerous saproi)hytes are always 

 lurking about for a chance to slip in at an open door and begin their 

 work of destruction. 



Among the little objects occasionally seen on apples are clusters of the 

 one named above, not a very elegant common name, but one that all 

 of us understand. It does not injure the apple much, excepting to destroy 

 its beauty. I have found them on Shiawassee Beauty, and more especially 

 on some small natural fruit grown without much care in the arboretum. 

 This little speck has been very seldom noticed in bulletins and reports. 



Twig-blight, fire blight. (Micrococcus amylovorus Burrill.) The efi'ects 

 of this parasite are familiar in the black and blasted young growth of 

 stems and leaves, as sometimes seen in summer. The cause is the same 

 as that for pear-blight, a microbe or bacterium, well studied by Dr. T. J. 

 Burrill, Dr. J. C. Arthur, and M. B. Waite. The remedy most prac- 

 ticable seems to be to cut off thoroughly and promptly and bui-n or bury 

 the parts aft'ected, and see that the same thing is done for all neighboring 

 trees of pear, quince, crab-apple, wild crab, mountain ash, sorviceberry, 

 and hawthorn, as they are subject to the same disease. ^Ir. Waite says 

 avoid the production of much new wood, avoid stimulating with barn- 

 yard manures. 



But I hear more than one fruitgrower say, I do not care so much for 

 the names and habits of these fungi. All I want to know is how to kill 



