LIVING ENEMIES OF TREES 



bark, fruit or leaf tissue. To protect your trees and fruit from 

 injury by fungus, the remedy must be applied at the right time 

 which is just before the spores have made their appearance. 

 This will make it impossible for them to germinate or live after 

 they lodge on bark, foliage or fruit. 



If the spores once germinate or start to grow, they com- 

 mence to destroy the tissues on which they live. Even though 

 you should kill them then, you could not replace the leaf or 

 bark tissue that has been destroyed already. You must coat 

 baby fungi with a mixture that will kill them, and the work 

 is done, for mature fungi "plants" will not live long if not 

 allowed to reproduce. Prevent the injury you cannot cure it. 



While there are almost unnumbered kinds of fungus, the 

 preventive measures are simple. Two or three applications of 

 a standard fungicide mixture at the proper time and in a 

 thorough manner are all that is required. Lime-sulphur solution 

 at the dilute strength, combined with ar senate of lead, or self- 

 boiled lime-sulphur, are effective for early sprayings most of the 

 time; but in some instances Bordeaux mixture is still the proper 

 remedy. They should be used in the ways advised in spraying 

 directions. 



For diseases of trees, or attacks of bacteria, examples of 

 which are fire blight of pear and apple, and yellows of peach, no 

 material is much of a remedy and spraying is of little use. Trees 

 do not have a circulation, as do animal bodies. It is ab- 

 solutely impossible to get a remedy dissolved into the sap of 

 trees and to make it circulate to every fiber. The only thing 

 to do is to cut away the affected limb or tree several inches 

 below any sign of the trouble. Fire blight will show by a dark 

 line just how far it has gone, and you must cut below this. 

 Yellows, however, seems to be in the whole tree, and the tree 

 should be removed, root and branch. Watch your orchard, and 

 when you see indications of this class of enemies, get your axe 

 and saw quickly. 



In doing this work, have a strong germicide or antiseptic 

 into which you can dip your tools after cutting off each tree 

 or limb. If you do not do this, the tools will carry bacteria, 

 and thus spread the trouble. But do not hesitate to cut. The 

 only time when it pays to try to "doctor up" an affected tree 

 is in the case of a fine old landmark or lawn tree. Here you can 

 wash or most thoroughly spray the whole tree trunk and twigs 

 and leaves with a solution of corrosive sublimate or of copper 

 sulfate, with a little chance of checking the spread of the disease 

 so that excessive pruning will not be needed. 



There is considerable difference between the different fruits, 

 and varieties in each fruit vary, as to their ability to withstand 

 insects and diseases, and also as to their ability to stand strong 

 spray materials without burning. One kind of fruit, or one 

 variety, will be badly attacked by some trouble, while right 

 beside it will be trees of a different fruit or of the same fruit 

 and a different variety, which will be affected very little or not 

 at all. Thus peach is always more tender than apple, and it 

 will not stand nearly as strong materials. 



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