AN APPLE ORCHARD SURVEY OF WAYNE COUNTY, NEW YORK. 281 



There are two reasons for leaving these long stubs. One, I fear the 

 more common one, is because it is easier to do so. But many farmers 

 leave a long stub when a large limb must be removed because they think 

 that the wound will be too large to heal, and by leaving the long stub 

 they hope to keep the rot away from the tree. The rapidity with 

 which fungi penetrate the wood after they get started refutes this 

 practice. Success 

 must come from 

 preventing the start 

 of decay, -not from 

 giving it a long dis- 

 tance to travel be- 

 fore it gets into the 

 trunk. In one forty- 

 acre orchard the 

 owner left stubs 

 about a foot long to 

 serve as ladders ! 

 His successor has 

 gone through the 

 orchard and cut 

 these off and has 

 done what was pos- 

 sible to prevent 

 further decay. 



In Fig. 49 is 

 shown a tree with 

 long stubs that will 

 result in its death. 

 Fig- 54 gives what 

 will be the next step. 

 The outside of this 

 stub shows the seed-forming bodies (spore fruits) of the fungi ; but it does 

 not look very bad, while the inside is so decayed that it only needed a good 

 load of fruit to break the tree. Fig. 53 is another stub that will ultimately 

 cause the death of the tree. The tape-measure shows how far the stick 

 extends into the decayed hole. The decay, of course, goes much farther. 

 Fig. 50 shows a decayed hole that was caused by leaving a large wouncl 



FIG. 50. The decayed hole caused by wood-destroying 

 fungi. (See Figs. 51 and 52.} 



