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coutinues to grow slowly in the soft iuner bark, and it is 

 such spots of still living blight that serve to carry the con- 

 tagion over winter. This is an important point in the life 

 history of the disease that has been pointed out recently by 

 M. B. Waite of the Department of Agriculture, who has 

 devoted much time to the study of this disease. He has 

 shown that from such spots of "hold over blight," the germs 

 are carried to the flowers in the spring by bees and other 

 insects. Here they multiply rapidly in the nectar secreted 

 by the flowers, and are widely disseminated by the same in- 

 sect agency, causing the sudden outbreak of "blossom 

 blight,"' so familiar and so disastrous to Southern pear 

 growers. The disease has attracted most attention on the 

 pear, but it frequently occurs on the apple and the quince. 

 The only known remedy has been to cut out and burn the 

 diseased portions as soon as they can be detected. Mr- 

 Waite's discovery of the way in which the disease passes 

 the winter, indicates that it should be supplemented by a 

 very careful examination of the trees during winter and 

 early spring, to remove all spots of the 'hold over blight," 

 thus destroying the contagion'as far as possible before it 

 is carried to the open flowers, which are by far the most 

 vulnerable part of the tree. 



Another important point in combatting pear blight, is to 

 so control the growth of the tree as to prevent a rank, 

 sappy, over vigorous condition. It is in soft, rapidly grow- 

 ing tissues that the blight thrives best, and when it gains 

 entrance to such trees, it is very hard to check its course. 

 In a tree that is making only a moderate growth that ma- 

 tures and hardens early, the disease frequently dies out of 

 itself without doing such serious injury. For this reason 

 especially, as the trees reach bearing age, nitrogeneous fer- 

 tilizers and excessive cultivation should be carefully 

 avoided. A little seeming neglect is often the best possi- 

 ble treatment for a pear orchard. On good soil the ideal 

 treatment of a pear orchard of bearing age would be to 

 sow down to some low-growing legume like Lesjjeckza or 



