204 JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY [Vol. 9 



CONTROL OF THE CEDAR RUST IN WEST VIRGINIA 

 ADDRESS OF THE CHAIRMAN 



By W. E. RuMSEY, Morgantown, W. Va. 



Gentlemen: To have the honor of presiding at a session of our 

 Association is certainly appreciated by your present chairman. An 

 elaborate address will not be attempted but some remarks may be 

 appropriate at this time concerning the "snags" encountered by 

 West Virginia in attempting to enforce certain features of her nur- 

 sery and orchard inspection laws. Therefore, with your indulgence, 

 the eradication of red cedars in the vicinity of apple orchards will be 

 considered. 



The damage by apple rust or so-called "cedar rust" to orchards 

 in the eastern panhandle of our state has been enormous, amounting 

 to $75,000.00 in 1912 in Berkeley county alone. This is a conservative 

 estimate and includes merely the loss to the crop for that year, not 

 taking into consideration the devitalization of the trees which pre- 

 vented them from developing fruit-buds for a succeeding crop. 



Since the scope of our crop pest law includes any dangerously in- 

 jurious insects or plant diseases that are liable to spread and cause 

 damage, the commission decided to make an effort to check apple rust 

 by the removal of red cedars in sections where the apple industr}^ had 

 developed sufficiently to make the cedar trees a nuisance. Spraying 

 for this disease is not practical commercially as has been determined 

 by investigations of our plant pathologist, N. J. Giddings, and others, 

 hence the only recourse is the removal of cedars. 



The cedar tree proposition is rather unique. These trees have been 

 growing in certain portions of our state since time immemorial, and it 

 has been only within the last few years that the disease, which cedars 

 harbor, has caused any serious loss to apple crops. At the present 

 time these trees do the general farmer no particular harm except to 

 take his pasture fields, for the cedars come up from seeds like weeds 

 and it is said that no kind of stock will eat even the 3^oung plants. 

 Besides this there is an aesthetic side that must not be ignored. Long 

 stretches of cedars on both sides of country roads and clumps of them, 

 clothed in perpetual green, covering many rocky knolls and ledges of 

 the limestone outcrop, add much to the scenic beauty of the Shenan- 

 doah Valley. 



Owing to the prevalence and destructiveness of apple rust in Berke- 

 ley county, one of the foremost apple sections of our state, the commis- 

 sion began its activities in this territory. On account of the unique- 



