PEAR TREE BLIGHT. 



329 



The thorn was found with the same 

 short mutilated roots as when taken from 

 its native ground. Scarcely a rootlet visi- 

 ble, and all dead. Yet this stub was 



sufficient to give the graft a most luxu- 

 riant growth until it had thrown out roots 

 of its own. W. H. Scott. 



Toledo, O , Dec. 3, 1848. 



PEAR TREE BLIGHT, 



BY DR. HERMAN WENDELL, ALBANY. 



Dear Sir — In your comments on my letter, 

 treating of the diseases to which pear trees 

 are more or less subject throughout our 

 whole country, printed in the Horticulturist 

 of last February, you say — "That a mild 

 winter, with sudden and great fluctuations 

 of temperature, in a climate like that of 

 Albany, is perhaps more fatal to a tender 

 barked tree than one of uniformly low tem- 

 perature." This position I shall not at- 

 tempt to controvert ; for it coincides with 

 my own experience. You also go on to 

 say — "Take the present season, for exam- 

 ple, &c. * * * At Albany, on the 

 12th and 13th of January, the mercury sunk 

 as low as 22^ below the zero of Fahrenheit. 

 This was followed, perhaps, by bright wea- 

 ther ; and in trees fully exposed to the 

 great alternations of frost and sun, we think 

 frozen sap-blight would be very apt to oc- 

 cur." The extreme cold to which you al- 

 lude, as having occurred in Januar)'^, and 

 which you say was perhaps followed by 

 mild and bright weather, was so followed ; 

 and this was not the only occurrence of the 

 kind during the winter. For, several times, 

 the vicissitudes were equally great ; so fre- 

 quently, in fact, that cherry, peach, plum 

 and nectarine trees bore little or no fruit 

 during the past season in this whole vi- 

 cinity, — the fruit buds having been de- 

 stroyed by these sudden changes of tempe- 

 rature. Yet, notwithstanding all this, my 

 pear trees have borne well, and I have not 



lost one large tree from my extensive col- 

 lection, by what you have called frozen sap- 

 blight — that which shows itself ytrs^ on the 

 trunk or the body of the branches of the 

 tree ; whereas, last season, the preceding 

 winter to which had not been marked by 

 such sudden alternations, but which, on 

 the contrary, was unusually mild and equa- 

 ble, I lost more than twenty. Neither have 

 I lost more than two small trees from that 

 disease which makes its first appearance on 

 the extremity of the stem, (not the scolytus 

 pyri,*) or but a very few limbs from the 

 older trees ; whereas, the preceding sum- 

 mer, I lost a large number of small trees, 

 and nearly half the branches from some of 

 my large ones from such cause. 



After the publication of your February 

 number, I determined to wait until the 

 termination of the season, which has just 

 passed, before expressing myself further on 

 the subject of pear tree diseases ; because 

 I thought that the course things took, sub- 

 sequent to such a winter as the last, would, 

 in all probability, indicate to us some- 

 what whether the diseases in question were 

 caused by frozen-sap, scalded-sap, or some 

 other influence. 



Now, I have related facts as they are. 

 Others, as well as myself, can draw their 



* I in;iy ;is well remnrlf, en passant, that the moment I dis- 

 covered tlic sli;;hiesl intiicaiinns of disease in llie extremities 

 of a liinl), I iinipniaied it, with a clean knife, at ils jnnction 

 Willi the ni;iin stern, and covered the wounJ with the shellac 

 siilutio:'.. Tiiis cour;e i::variably checked its furilier pro- 



"f fS. 



