94 



THE GARDE NEIVS MONTHLY 



[March, 



QUERIES. 



Bkks and Ci.c)Vj:k. — " Busy Bee," Baltimore, 

 Md., writes : " I semi you a slip from the Lou- 

 don Agricultural Gazette, which contradicts the 

 position you assume, that clover can be fertilized 

 without the aid of bees. With two such dis- 

 tinguished scientists as Mr. Darwin, in England, 

 and Prof. Gray against you in this country, are 

 you sure your position is correct? Here ia the 

 extract : 



" ' Why has there been so little holly berry and 

 red clover in England the past year? Mr. Dar- 

 ^Yin explains that bees were extraordinarily rare 

 in tlio early Sprin<r, and that without bees to 

 carry pollen from the male to the female plant, 

 neither holly nor clover can be fertilized. The 

 Spectator goes further. It attributes the inactiv- 

 ity of the bees to conservative reaction, and sug- 

 gests that they were exchanging their queen for 

 an empress, or altering the labor laws to suit 

 the drones, or honeycombing the hives under 

 some impulse of sanitary panic, and so the clover 

 and the holly flowers were sadly neglected.' " 



[In one way we thank our correspondent for 



sending us this slip, as an impression is being 

 created in some quarters that the writer of this, 

 in his opposition to extreme views of insect 

 fertilixation, was doing unuecesBary work, as 

 no such extreme views prevailed. It is now 

 said that the only point contended for was, 

 that insects viay "sometimes" cross fertilize 

 flowers, and that when insects do not come 

 about, the flowers can and do in moet cases fer- 

 tilize themselves. We see, however, by the ex- 

 tract, that this is not the view held by the 

 Gazette, nor was it the view extensivoly held in 

 this country prior to Mr. Mcehan's work. What- 

 ever may be Mr. Darwin's views, our correspon- 

 dent does not do Dr. Gray justice, for he has 

 recently explained his view to be that when the 

 plants are not visited by insects, they are gener- 

 ally able, as a secondary resort, to fertilize them- 

 selves. In regard to the clover question, its not 

 seeding at times is evidently due to impaired 

 nutrition in the direction of reproduction, as 

 explained in Mr. Median's Detroit paper. — Ed. 

 G. M.l 



ORTICULTURAL ^SOCIETIES. 



COMMUNICA TIONS. 



PEAR TREE BLIGHT IN OHIO. 



BY M. B. BATEII.VM, PAI.VESVILLE, O. 



No question relating to Horticulture or Pom- 

 ology is of so much practical importance in 

 Ohio, and the Western States generally, as that 

 of the cause and prevention of pear tree blight. 

 Many thousands of dollars are annually expend- 

 ed in the purchase and planting of pear trees, 

 only to see them flourish for a few seasons, and 

 then blacken and die, when they begin to give 

 promise of fruit. 



At the recent annual meeting of the Ohio 

 State Horticultural Society, it was hoped that 

 some progress would be made towards solving 

 this vexed problem. As Secretary of the Society, 

 and in order to save time in discussion, I gave a 

 brief survey of what had been developed during 

 th€ past year or two ; first, reverting to the meet- 



ing of last year, when a gentleman named McCall 

 was present, from Southern Ohio, who claimed 

 to have discovered the real cause of what is 

 known as fire blight. He had recently attended 

 the meeting of the American Pomological So- 

 ciety at Chicago, and at his request a committee 

 of that Society had been appointed to investigate 

 his discovery during the next season, and in du^ 

 time make report. He also wished that a com- 

 mittee of our State Society should be appointed 

 for the same purpose — then if the discovery was 

 found to be real, and of value to the public, the 

 two Societies might devise some way by which 

 he should be compensated. This was regarded 

 as fair and just, and the committee was accord- 

 ingly appointed. As Secretary of that commit- 

 tee, after making observations during the Sum- 

 mer, and consulting several of the other mem- 

 bers, I was intending to make report at this 

 meeting, but on writing to Mr. McC, inviting 



