FORTIETH ANNUAL REPORT. 25 



lake shore and I see there, old orchards that have been pruned and thor- 

 oughly cultivated, twelve to twenty-five years old, without any vacancies 

 in the orchard, and I do not know what to say. 



A Member^ — I have been raising i>ears for some time and have had more 

 or less trouble with blight. I have adopted the practice of looking very 

 close to the wood iii March and every limb that has any discoloration 

 in it, I cut out very low, the same as Mr. Fritz, and since I adopted this 

 plan I have had little or no trouble, so I think the way to secure control 

 of the blight is to nip it before it develops, and the way to do this is to 

 cut out every particle of it, and do the work thoroughly. 



A Member — Four years ago when I was in Colorado, they were cutting 

 the blight out and binding the wound over with petroleum. I had a 

 small orchard of pears, Clapps and Bartletts, and I have had more or 

 less trouble with the blight. Since then I have used clear kerosene oil 

 as an application wherever I cut off a limb and I find that for some cause 

 or other, — whether the kerosene has anything to do with it I do not 

 know — but it seemed to work well Avitli me. 



A Member — We have not had very much blight in our pears but we 

 have had much of it in our apples. We came to the conclusion that the 

 spreading of it was due to our not sterilizing our instruments with which 

 we did the cutting. Corrosive sublimate as a means of sterilization has 

 been advocated; but we used straight commercial lime sulphur and al- 

 ways dip either our knife, hand-shears or long pruning hook into this 

 solution every time we use any of them. We had some Sutton Beauty 

 apples, same which last year we lost entirely through blight, and would 

 have lost this year but we think we now have the disease under control 

 by adopting the principle of sterilization of our instruments, which we 

 have never done before. In other words, now we sterilize, whereas be- 

 fore we did not. , 



Mr. Smythe — I would like to ask if anybody else has used kerosene or 

 has tried any other disinfectant. 



A Member — I have used kerosene on my knife. 



Q. I would like to have question number 20 answered. It is, ''Do 

 Bartlett pear trees blight any more when well cultivated than when kept 

 in sod?" 



Mr. Farrand — I do not think there is any definite reliable iufornm- 

 tion that can be given on this point, but I think the general tendency 

 of information has been that very intense cultivation, and possibly the 

 other methods with it, heavy pruning and strong fertilization, would 

 induce such a growth as to make the tree susceptible to blight. And then 

 acting on this theory, I have known of parties who have seeded their or- 

 chard down to check their growth and consequently check the blight, 

 and in. some instances, at least, it has looked as though it helped to do 

 it. But, on the other hand, I know of orchards that have been thor- 

 oughly cultivated and highly fertilized but with only the ordinary meth- 

 ods of prevention of insect pests, have shown no signs of blight. The fact 

 is that in some years and in some orchards the blight does not seem 

 to appear, or if it does show itself it is easily controled while in other 

 orchards it will stay right tliere year after year in spite of the best eradi- 

 cative measures that the owner can give. Mr. Sherw^ood's orchard I 

 have seen often and he was troubled greatly with the blight. He fertil- 

 ized very heavily and we laid it to that; but still I am not sure that is it. 



