11»0 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 



dress down the bark and see how far down it is sound. A: Yes, and cut 

 it otf. 



Prof. Taft: You may have, for instance, half of the top discolored, and 

 the blight not reach the main forks of the tree, nevertheless; or, you 

 may have very little blight in the top of the tree and the tree be gone. 

 You have to make a special study of each case. 



Q : Can you keep pear-blight out of an orchard entirely? 



Prof. Waite: I neglected to say that. That is, I believe, the only way 

 to deal with the pear-blight question, to keep the blight out of the 

 orchard. 



Mr. Morrill: That is, by cutting immediately. 



Prof. Waite: By not letting it go. The first blight that comes into 

 the orchard must come by a bird or by a bee or something like that, almost 

 always, probably; we are very nearly certain that it comes in about 

 blossom time in the spring, but it may come in the summer time. The 

 proper thing to do in starting a young orchard is to make a thorough 

 inspection right after blooming time, and then at intervals of, say, about 

 two weeks to a month during the summer; and be sure that every bad leaf 

 in the orchard is accounted for and the blight cut out. The proper time 

 to finish up your work for the year is at the close of the growing period, 

 because infection can only take place while the trees are growing, so that 

 no new infections can take place after the full growth. If there is a 

 full growth in September, you must begin after that. You can, of course, 

 go over the trees in the winter time, but it is not nearly so convenient, 

 because you have not the dead leaves to guide you to the cases of blight. 

 In the fall you have a regular sign held up to you. The two main times 

 for inspection are right after blooming, when you would see the fruit 

 spore that was blighting, and in the fall, after the last growth, to be sure 

 that none is left over the winter; and you should inspect the orchard 

 just as thoroughly when there is no blight in it as when it is full. In 

 other words, look out for the first case of pear-blight that appears. This 

 inspection should not consist in merely driving over the orchard and 

 around it, but should consist in going up and down every row. I doubt 

 very much if a person could give a satisfactory inspection of an orchard 

 two or three years old unless he went up one side and down the other side 

 of that row, bending his whole attention to the side of the tree he was 

 on. He can not ride through on horseback nor any other way. He must 

 look every tree over, to be sure there is no blight in it. 



Q: There is no preventive? 



Prof. Waite: Why, no, not after the blight is in the tissues, because 

 it is beyond all reach, so far as we know. 



Q: The only cure is the knife? 



Prof. Waite: Well, yes; and not the old view of cutting out the blight 

 for the tree. Cut the tree out, if you have to, to get out the blight, for 

 the sake of the rest of the orchard — just the same as we keep cholera out 

 of New York, by quarantine. 



Q: The same as we do with yellows here? Prof. Waite: Yes. 



Q : Only you don't have to cut off the whole tree, sometimes. 



Prof. Waite: No. You have a fair chance to save your tree in blight. 



Q: Is it a fact that a tree is struck with blight if there is dead leaves 

 found on the tree? 



Prof. Waite: No, because a branch is oftentimes broken off, say. 



