304 THE MONTHLY BULLETIN. 



bees never injure sound fruit, but are fond of ripe fruit and are 

 quick to attack it when other insect, bird or weather wounds it. 



A w^ord regarding pear blight. It is quite certain that fire blight 

 and twig blight of pome fruits are spread rapidly by insects, and bees 

 of course aid in this dispersion. We have all observed how rapidly 

 pome blight spreads at the season of bloom in pear, apple and quince 

 orchards. That bees are the most numerous visitors of the flowers at 

 this time is of course true. That the germs of the disease are thick in 

 the nectar is also unquestioned. Yet other insects are just as able to 

 carry the blight germs as are bees, and are sufficiently abundant to 

 do most serious harm. If the bees were removed, the blight would' 

 spread very likely as rapidly and work as fatally as with the bees 

 sv^-arming on the bloom. Other insects abound sufficiently to spread 

 the blight, but not in numbers requisite for proper pollination of the 

 bloom or full production of fruit. 



In years like the present we shall always find it necessarj^ to fight 

 this insidious bacterial disease in case it is present in our neighborhood. 

 The great and effective cure is very thorough pruning, so thorough that 

 every vestage of the diseased tissue is removed from twigs, branches, 

 trunk and roots, and we mu^t be equalh' insistent that after each cut- 

 ting chisel, knife or shears is thoroughly disinfected by use of a one to 

 one thousand solution of corrosive sublimate — bichloride of mercury. 



THE APRICOT. 



By J. C. Shixx^ Niles, Cal. 

 Address before State Fruit Growers' Convention, Davis, Cal., June, 1914. 



I have been requested to write a short paper on the apricot, and 

 1 shall confine what I write to my own experience and to what I have 

 observed as boy and man about apricots or, as they are familiarly 

 and perhaps affectionately called, "cots." What I shall write is 

 based in the main on what I know of conditions in the central coast 

 valleys, but much of it applies, of course, equally well throughout 

 the State. 



My earliest recollections of apricots have to do with climbing up 

 into some trees of the small Hemskirke variety on this place at Niles 

 and gathering and eating the delicious, pulpy fruit. As I remember 

 these trees they seem to have been immense, about as large as the 

 largest apricot trees now in the valley, but I realized yesterday when 

 I went down to look at them that one can not always depend on 

 boyish memories after a lapse of forty-five years or so, for the few 

 trees left are quite dwarfish, having been grafted on the old Damson 

 plum root, and are no larger than eight-year-old trees should be, in 

 height at least, though they were bearing trees when my father came 

 on to the place in 1856. I still maintain, however, that those apricots 

 that I ate with so much pleasure so many years ago were a fruit fit 

 for the gods, and if any one doubts it let him come to my orchard 

 about the end of July and I can make a very fair demonstration witli 

 apricots from the very same old trees- 



We are gradually learning in California to grow in each section the 

 one or more varieties of fruit that are best adapted to that given 



