- 4 - 



the Japanese beetle grubs typifies insect control v/ith a specific bacterial organism. 

 The destruction of plant lice by certain species of fungi illustrates biological 

 control by pathogenic forms of fungi. 



In the realm of microscopic life, nematodes have been found to pierce the cells 

 of fungus threads and suck out the contents. Aside from the direct attack of one 

 fungus upon another, the mere presence of many fungi and bacteria is able to suppress 

 or completely inhibit the grovrth of other micro-organisms by the action of certain 

 soluble excretions or grovrfch by-products. Penicillin is such a substaiice produced 

 and released by members of the Penicillium fungi, and is well knovm to be deadly to 

 many disease-producing bacteria of humans. 



Streptomycin is a still more recent "drug", produced by the fungus-like 

 organism, Streptomyces, vmich will destroy certain disease bacteria that penicillin 

 will not affect. In recent years, plant pathologists have experimented with these 

 so-called "drugs", azid some interesting inforraation is forthcoming v;ith the use of 

 streptomycin, A pathologist in California found that streptomycin readily kills 

 the different bacterial organisms that cause fire blight, tomato bacterial canker, 

 bacterial leaf spot of carrot, potato scab, bean blight and still others. 



Plant pathologists in Wisconsin reported recently how they obtained a similar 

 extract from Streptomycos and completely inhibited grovrbh of the apple scab and 

 peach brov/n rot fungi in laboratory cultures with dilutions as high as vne to 

 8 million. In greenhouse tests, infection of susceptible apple leaves by apple 

 scab v/as greatly reduced or prevented outright by spraying them with a water 

 dilution of streptomycin 4 hours, also 4 days, before inoculation with the scab 

 spores. 



This appears to be a new angle to the use of organic fungicides for plant 

 disease control, — or is it a type of biological control? 



— 0, C. Boyd 



******************** 



A NOTE m^ HAI'ID POLLINATION 



The follovvTing comments on a new method of insuring pollination were recently 

 made by Ben Drev; of Westford; 'HVe secured definite evidence that our hand- 

 pollinating efforts resulted in more apples per tree, than on those trees not 

 hand-pollinated, but the difference was so slight that v:e need to know a lot more 

 about the many factors involved, particularly the timing, before trying this on a 

 larger scale, 



"l(Ye treated about an acre of large trees (Mcintosh) with our self-collected 

 pollen from Astrachan blossoms, using small camel-liair brushes," 



******************** 



GALBRAITH BALDT/IN , A PROMISING RED SPORT 



In 1934, a small brunch on a Baldwin tree located in Block 0, one of the old 

 experimental blocks of the Liassachusetts Agricultural Experiment Station, was 

 observed to produce five highly colored apples. This branch was first noticed 

 by Floyd Galbraith who -v/nrked in tho Station orchards at that time. The sport 

 has since been called "Galbraith". 



