STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 73 



were so bliglited they looked in a few days after as if a fire had scorclied tliem, but 

 trees (of the same varieties), altliough they were onlj^ a few rods off, but with no 

 blossoms on them, on those hot days, or had no flowers at all, were exempt from 

 blight all summer, although we had it just as hot afterwards, and more so ; but the 

 sap must have been in better condition to withstand it. Why those varieties were 

 not affected alike, must be caused by the absorption of the litxuid matter or sap, 

 that circulated freer or faster than aliose that were in full bloom, than those that 

 hadn't any, and the flower petals offered larger surface, and thinner leaf, for the 

 hot and dry air to absorb it faster than it could be supplied ; hence the wilting and 

 finally drying up of thera, on the ends; but all the flowers were not affected from 

 the one bud, because they do not all open at the same time, as there is always one 

 or more that will take the lead (same as sprouts on potatoes) and upon the petals 

 first. 



After wilting or drying up, the damp, or cooler air sets in, the petals turn gray- 

 ish brown, and then is the time, the germ of fungii germinates, or as Prof. Burrill 

 explained at the Illinois State Horticultural meeting in Chicago last December, 

 about finding a still lower minute organism, called Bacteria. He showed chai'ts, 

 and explained the kinds he found in five blighted trees, and said that kind lived on 

 dead substances, same as fungii, and then the leaves turn dark, and finally black, 

 and rotten sap or vines running back from the petal to the calyx, and then down 

 the stem of the little apple, on away to the base, where all the fine stems started 

 from, (on the bad) making all affected after them, the new on young growth of 

 the shoot, (or if no shoot had yet started) the bunch of leaves, l)ut if that is rubbed 

 off or dry weather had set in again in the apples, and most of the crabs, it is stop- 

 ped on accent of thicker bark, and other causes. On the pear it generally runs 

 down until the tree is killed, if not in one season it will l)e in the next, unless stop- 

 ped by the fruit grower, either by cutting off the affected spur or whole limb a few 

 inches below where there is life. We find by cutting off the outside bark at the 

 place where the limb should be cut off answers fully as well, if the knife has not 

 been used on the affected part, but if so it must be cleaned before using in girdling. 



Gentlemen, I am very much obliged to you for giving me this duty, though my 

 work is not satisfactory to me. 



I shall pay more attention another spring if I live, and make closer examinations, 

 as I find there are just as many varieties and forms in the blossoms as there are 

 varieties of trees, and I think the varieties can be distinguished more correctly by 

 the blossoms than by the fruit itself. Also for the marked effects on starting the 

 blight from the blossoms, and as most western fruit growers who have talked or 

 wrote on the blight question, myself not excepted, always advocated that the sap 

 that has been forced through either the stomata of the small hair on the under side 

 of the leaves, or by puncture &c.. or the pressure of sap circulation are the cause^ 

 for the parasitic fungii, Avhich germinates in sap that is dead, or in an overdose of 

 it, (as we always find it first on young, thrifty, fast growing trees and especially on 

 highly enriched and cultivated grounds), I found it just the reverse, there was not 

 enough for a supply, hence the petals wilted, just when they wanted the largest 

 supply, and when the absorption uses the greatest, but as the next question is on 

 blight, and the gentleman is perhaps better acquainted with this subject than I 



