35 



of the current year's growth onl>', that there was a blight causing the entire destruction of 

 some of the large limbs of several of the trees. Many of the twigs on these- limbs had 

 been blighted the previous year or years, and it is possible that this more serious blight of 

 the limbs is but an extension and further development of the twig blight. On examining 

 the base of the blighted twigs and fruit spurs it was found that where these wore killed 

 to the point of junction with the wood that the discolouration arising from the disease ex- 

 tended into the wood of the branch, which seems to point to the probability of the correct- 

 ness of the suggestion just made. On the other hand, seeing that its character is some- 

 what distinctive, it may be inferred that it is an entirely different form, re.sulting from the 

 presence and development of a different species of fungus ; so obscure are the distinguish- 

 ing features which separate these lower forms of vegetable life, that it would require much 

 close study to determine this point. 



The twig blight had affected many of the older trees in Mr. Dougall's orchards so 

 much as to give them a decidedly withered and browned aspect, pervading the entire cir 

 cuDjference, and distributed with much apparent regularity over their many branches. It 

 had also injured to a very great extent the young apple trees in his nursery rows : in 

 these the injury appeared to begin in the tips of the upper branches, and from thence 

 spread downwards, extending in many instances half way down the trunk of the tree. 

 Evidences of the extension of the blight were to be seen sometimes in the discolouration 

 of the outer bark, in patches below apparently uninjured portions. In some of these 

 small trees the twigs were blighted down the trunk to near its base, while the trunk 

 remained apparently sound. The odour of the affected twigs, when broken, was very 

 similar to that given off from pear blight. Manj' of the young trees in the nurserj' rows 

 had been smitten by the disease early in the summer, and Mr. Dougall had pruned many 

 of these, cutting away the whole of the diseased portion down to the healthy growth, but 

 in most instances the blight attacked the remaining portions, and extending downwards 

 involved more or less of the trunk to its base, indicating probably that the fungoid germs 

 had extended in the sap through the adjoining tissues, without producing as yet any 

 external appearance by which their presence might be recognised. 



