APPLE DISEASES 



481 



times the branches on one side of the 

 tree are healthy, while on the other side 

 they are diseased. Invariably the dis- 

 eased branches can be traced to diseased 

 roots on the same side, unless the injury 

 is above the ground. 



On the high lands I sometimes found a 

 lack of water. Under these conditions 

 rosette could not have been caused by 

 too much water, seepage, water-logging, 

 or drowning the root hairs. 



In these orchards I found that gen- 

 erally the rosetted trees had crown gall, 

 nematode gall, aphis, the roots had been 



Fig. 2. Terminal Bud Showing Origin of 

 Leaves. f. leaf rudiment ; g. rudiment of 

 axillary bud (x 10). If, as in the case of 

 rosette, this bud failed to elongate the leaves 

 would appear in a bunch or "rosette" instead 

 of being distributed along the branch at in- 

 tervals of several inches. 



From Strasburger's Lchrhuch der Botanik : 

 Encii. Brit. 



injured by gophers, farm machinery and 

 sometimes all of these combined. Some- 

 times the roots were struggling to get 

 their food from scab land or hard pan, 

 and were stunted or malformed. One- 

 year-old nursery stock is sometimes in- 

 jured by gophers or woolly aphis, and 

 rosette appears. Again, the graft some- 

 times fails properly to unite, gall forms 

 at the union and rosette appears. 



In 3Iontana 



In Montana in the Bitter Root valley 

 is an orchard to which M. L. Dean, 



State Horticulturist, called my attention. 

 In this orchard was 75 per cent of ro- 

 setted trees. It had been neglected, iield 

 mice and gophers had so injured the 

 roots that many of the trees had been 

 bridge grafted to keep them from dying. 

 In this case the dominant cause seemed 

 to be injury from gophers and field mice. 

 In other orchards in the same valley ro- 

 sette was evidently caused by seepage 

 water from the mountains. In other 

 places it was evident that alkali was the 

 cause. 



In Utah 



In Utah I found peculiar conditions. 

 The fruit-growing sections of Utah are 

 mainly in the interior parts of the state. 

 These interior parts are surrounded by 

 mountains and hills that drain into lakes 

 in the interior basin. This basin was 

 once a lake of water, several hundred 

 feet in depth, and its outlet was toward 

 the Snake river and from that into the 

 Columbia. In the process of the ages, 

 the waters cut down to a rock barrier 

 and the lake had no outlet. Gradually 

 the waters sank away into the earth un- 

 til a hard pan was formed which held 

 them. Now these waters are not perco- 

 lating through the soil and sinking away 

 to any considerable degree, but their only 

 escape is by the process of evaporation. 

 The drainage system from the mountains 

 pours into these lakes and the water 

 rises and falls with the floods and drouth 

 or the melting snows in the mountains, 

 and the degrees of heat that increase 

 evaporation. 



The soils of Utah have a strong ad- 

 mixture of salt, sulphur, alum, alkali and 

 other minerals. The Great Salt lake is 

 so strong in these substances that scarce- 

 ly any form of vegetable or animal life 

 can exist in its waters. In the early 

 days farms were established and orch- 

 ards planted so near these waters that 

 the rise and fall of the water table de- 

 stroyed the roots. Then too, the water 

 table is slowly rising, for the evaporation 

 from the lakes is not equal to the waters 

 drained into them and the waters are 

 slowly encroaching upon farms that were 

 once fruitful. Much the larger part of 



