THE PEAR 171 



tree, they multiply prodigiously and exert a 

 malignant influence that withers blossoms, 

 blights the fruit, and causes the leaves to take 

 on a bronzed red hue that is often premonitory 

 of the death of the tree. 



If they find lodgment in the cambium layer of 

 the trunk, they may spread rapidly in every 

 direction until they girdle the tree, shutting off 

 its supply of sap as effectively as if it had been 

 girdled with an axe. 



Wherever lodged, the colonies of bacilli may 

 be located by the oozing out of a milky or dirty 

 brown sticky liquid when the spring rains come. 

 This liquid is attractive to insects, and as the feet 

 and bodies of these marauders become covered 

 with the germ-laden fluid, the transfer of the 

 germs to other trees and to flowers and fruit even 

 fairly remote is thus assured. Not merely flies 

 and gnats, but the bee itself may have a share 

 in thus transporting the contagion from one 

 tree to another till it infects every tree in the 

 orchard. 



The nectary of the pear, which the bee may in- 

 advertently inoculate, furnishes a most favorable 

 medium for the multiplication of the bacilli. 

 Thence they work their way from the fruit buds 

 to the limbs. Once they gain access, through the 

 links in the tree's armor furnished by the buds, 



