78 CULTURE AND MANAGEMENT 



practical men will be contented with a knowledge 

 of the important fact, which comes from a man of 

 judgment and of an observing disposition, who has 

 again and again satisfied himself that no deception 

 or accidental circumstance occurred, by reference 

 to which the preservation of his hooped trees could 

 be accounted for." 



CANKER. 



Apple trees are very liable to be affected with 

 the canker. This disease occasions the bark to 

 grow rough and scabby, and turns the wood affect- 

 ed to a rusty brown colour ; and if no remedy be 

 applied, will in time kill the tree. It is by some 

 described as a sort of gangrene, which usually be- 

 gins at the extremities of the branches, and pro- 

 ceeds towards the trunk, killing the tree in two or 

 three years. Peter Yates, esquire, of Albany, ob- 

 serves, that his fruit trees became affected with 

 the canker, generally appearing on the southwest 

 side of the body or trunk of the tree. The bark of 

 the infected part at first appeared dark, and at 

 length rough, wrinkled, cracked, and dead. The in- 

 fection annually increased; it communicated to the 

 alburnum or sap wood ; the circulation of the sap- 

 juice was obstructed; it gradually diminished; it 

 stagnated ; and the tree perished. The general opi- 

 nion respecting the cause of this disease is, that it 

 proceeds chiefly from the nature of the soil. Mr. 

 Forsyth, however, proves from experience, that it 

 originates from the following circumstances, name- 

 ly: injudicious pruning; leaving the footstalks of 

 fruit on trees after it has been gathered; bruises, 

 arising from the use of ladders in collecting fruit ; 

 and dead shoots, left on trees during the summer. 

 But, says Mr. Yates, " it seems extraordinary, that 

 the fruit trees in this climate are almost invariably 

 affected on the southwest side of the trunk or body 



