INDIANA HOKTICULTUEAL SOCIETY. 437 



been used if possessed. There was no drain tile or dredging machine 

 in the State — but there were great bodies of rich, moist hand giving forth 

 disease on every breatli of air to assail the pioneer and his isolated fam- 

 ily, and when I consider those days— the labors and the conditions— I do 

 not wonder that the majority passed away before time had crowned them 

 with hoary heads. They left honored names to posterity. They built no 

 workhouses, friendly inns or homes for the friendless, or orphan asylums. 

 There was work for all and good morals prevailed. Orphans and surplus 

 children of the very poor found homes and social equality among those 

 able to keep and rear them. Politics and religion abounded then as now 

 — but with less scandal and lower salaries. There was honest difference 

 of opinion then, but no trumped up cases of insanity to secure paltry 

 fees. I am not sure that the world grows better. 



EMIL BEELER FLETCHER. 



PREVENTION OF BITTER ROT. 



(SELECTED.) 



This disease, which has sometimes proven so disastrous to the apple 

 grower, has already been found this year widely distributed throughout 

 the chief apple growing regions of Illinois, and it has probably made the 

 same start elsewhere. It is never greatly developed at this season of the 

 year, but sharp observers are able to find it when there are but few in- 

 fected spots on the young apples. 



A discovery just made, July 11th, founded upon the observation of 

 an Illinois apple grower, seems to give an opportimlty not before possible 

 "to combat the scourge, and this circular is issued hastily in the hope that 

 a portion of the apple crop now liable to attack may be saved. It is a 

 matter of common knowledge that the fruit first infected in a tree 

 occupies a definite position in the branches. In general terms it may be 

 said that the disease shows in a conical shaped area with the apex 

 upward, and this has been explained by the fact that the spores of the 

 fungus are adhesive so that they can not be distributed by wind but can 

 readily be washed down by rain. The primary infection at the apex of 

 tnis cone, commonly supposed to be an eai'lier diseased apple, furnislied, 

 it was thought, the spores which started the disease in the fruits under- 

 neath. It has now, however, been ascertained (and this is the new fact 

 in the case) that this primary infection starts in a canker upon the limb 

 of the tree. In this situation the fungus lives over winter and as early 

 sometimes as .Tune begins to produce spores by which the young apples 

 are infected. It has been ascertained that this same thing takes place 

 in a "mummied" fruit, and attention has heretofore been strongly directed 



