300 Sliff/il hi J^rtiit Trees. 



say it, because we sball never reach the cause of " apple'"tree blight " if we are 

 not sensible to the stupidity of such statements. "Apple tree blight " has driven 

 the appple largely out of Ii]urope. It is coming, and from the east, westward, in 

 the line of moderate and not severe climacteric influences, sweeping the trees of 

 their reliable certainty of fruitage, and in certain regions almost or quite destroying 

 the trees. And we must attribute the cause not to winter's extremities, but justly 

 to " oyster-shell louse," to *' minute insects at the root," and such causes that 

 undermine the health, as tubercle in the human subject poisons the whole body, and 

 does it in a way not easily discovered, and I apprehend that the cause or causes are 

 not yet rendered plain to us all by anybody. My own trees until last year were 

 vigorous, they are now dying ; have clouds of a minute fly rising near night from 

 the ground over the roots. Yet I am by no means certain they are the cause of all 

 the trouble. It is also true, that two trees, whose roots are intertwined with those of 

 very large vines (Isabellas) which lost their tops, which were so large as to run seventy 

 and eighty feet, and whose stumps and roots are dying of Phylloxera, are the worst 

 aflFected of all those trees. Yet, I am not sure that the dying vine roots and the 

 dying apple trees are aff"ected by the same insect. 



Nor am I willing to admit that it is any change in soil that is the cause. Nor 

 local causes, for so general an evil. I only mean by this article to assert that we 

 need to have such trees carefully dug up, and the cause, be it what it may, deter- 

 mined, if the present apple tree loss is to be completely understood. We need 

 professional entomologists, not only, but competent men in every department of 

 causes, to investigate and report accurately., not by si&mises. 



S. J. Parker, M. D. 



Bliglit in Fruit Trees. 



EDITOR Horticulturist: — The blight in fruit-trees has caused a great 

 deal of thought and investigation by fruit growers for many years. Many pre- 

 ventives and remedies have been suggested and many causes assigned for the disease, 

 all appearing reasonable at the time, but liable to explode the next year. It has 

 been argued by some, that wet seasons are more conducive to blight than dry ones. 

 This theory don't work well ; last year being a rather dry season my apple trees 

 blighted very badly ; this year has been unusually wet and they are entirely exempt 

 from blight. I have a small pear orchard of some 300 trees, all dwarfs mostly, six 

 and seven years old ; thus far I have not lost a tree from blight ; I might say I 

 have had none of it in my orchard ; they have passed through wet seasons and dry 

 seasons unharmed, while a neighbor of mine has several hundred pear trees from 12 

 to 15 years old, mostly standards ; he has had but little blight until this year; very 

 nearly all his trees are now seriously affected, so much so, that he fears the entire 

 loss of many of them. Thus it appears that the blight works in a mysterious way, 

 and has not been satisfactorily accounted for by the knowing ones, and I fear never 

 will be. Nor is it probable that an effectual preventive will ever be discovered. 

 Bowling Green, Ky. A. D. Webb. 



