AND FRUIT GARDEN. Ill 



BLACK HEART. 



Lack of correct information upon this subject 

 has led to great imposition upon planters by either 

 ignorant or dishonest vendors. It is this that has 

 enabled them to so adroitly work the budded apple 

 tree swindle described elsewhere. 



This they teach to be a disease of the tree caused 

 by improper methods of propagation. It is no more 

 a disease than a burn or frost-bite. It is a condi- 

 tion, simply, and will not spread by contagion from 

 tree to tree; nor will it spread from one part of an 

 affected tree to another part. It may increase, but 

 it will require the same cause to increase it that it 

 did to produce it at first. 



Just what this condition is, and the cause or 

 causes, is now as well known as is any other physio- 

 logical fact. It is simply a rupture of the wood 

 cells, of which all plants are composed. In this 

 condition the sap will not flow from one cell to 

 another, becomes stagnant and discolored and this 

 is "black heart." 



The sap or plant food is enabled to flow through 

 these minute vesicles freely to all parts of the tree 

 when in a normal condition, but this delicate 

 organization is liable to injury by any adverse or 

 unnatural conditions. These may be the unadapt- 

 abilty of a tree to the climate, or the improper 

 handling of one that would be under ordinary cir- 

 cumstances adaptable. If we plant an orange tree 

 here, the first severe frost* would not only rupture 

 the cells of the inner wood, but would rupture 



