AMERICAN FORESTRY 



PINE BLISTER INVESTIGATORS 



Representatives of practically all the states in the white pine belt, of Canadian provinces, of the United States 

 Department of Agriculture and of the American Forestry Association and state forestry associations met at Albany, 

 New York, recently to report upon the extent of the pine blister outbreak and to discuss ways of combating it. 



Infected 

 white pine was 

 found in one 

 nursery in 

 northeastern 

 Ohio. 



I n Minne- 

 sota four infec- 

 tions, and in 

 Wisconsin two 

 infections, have 

 been found 

 along the St. 

 Croix River, 

 with the possi- 

 bility of infec- 

 tion in an area 

 about forty 

 miles square. 



Consider- 

 able infection 

 has been lo- 

 cated in the 

 lower Ontario 

 peninsula of Canada, but the 

 Canadian authorities appear 

 to have this situation well 

 under control. An infection 

 of unknown extent has been 

 located very recently near 

 Montreal. 



In the territory west of 

 the Mississippi River, a 

 general search has been 

 made for the blister disease, 

 following obvious clues of 

 shipments of pine, currants 

 and gooseberries. The dis- 

 ease has not been found. 

 There is no natural way in 

 which the disease can spread 

 into this territory, i.e., it can 

 only come in on nursery 

 stock. The danger of its 

 introduction on nursery 

 stock is, however, as great 

 as it ever was. 



Importance in 

 Timber Production 



There are about 13 billion 

 feet of merchantable white 

 pinein the Northeast, worth 

 in the neighborhood of 

 $75,000,000. The development of private forestry, 

 largely through the presence of the eastern white pine, 

 has gone further in this region than in any other part of 

 the United States. The area planted to white pine is 

 conservatively 50,000 acres, and 10,000,000 seedlings are 

 probably planted each year. Within this region there are 



5,000,000 or 

 nearer 10,000,- 

 000 acres more 

 suitable for the 

 production o f 

 forest trees 

 than for any 

 other purpose, 

 in which the 

 white pine was 

 animportant 

 tree in the orig- 

 inal stand and 

 in which it will 

 undoubtedly be 

 the best indi- 

 vidual tree for 

 future use. If 

 the blister rust 

 is not or cannot 

 be suppressed, 

 it seriously 

 threatens the 

 elimination of 

 the white pine as a forest 

 tree of economic value in 

 this region. 



There are still in the 

 lake states in the neighbor- 

 hood of twelve billion feet 

 of merchantable white pine, 

 worth probably $96,000,000. 

 There are probably 2,000,- 

 000 acres or more of young 

 growth in which a consider- 

 able percentage of the stand 

 is white pine. At least 3500 

 acres have been planted. In 

 addition to private and state 

 nurseries the Federal Gov- 

 ernment maintains others 

 with an output of from 

 400,000 to 500,000 seedlings 

 annually. At least 5,000,000 

 and probably nearer 10,000,- 

 000 acres in the lake states 

 are undoubtedly more valu- 

 able for the production of 

 timber than for any other 

 purpose. White pine was 

 the important tree of the 

 original stand and it should 

 be for future production. 

 Under forest management, 

 if the blister disease is kept out, an area now largely un- 

 productive could be made to produce annually from one to 

 four billion feet of the valuable white pine. 



Private holdings of western white pine in the Inland 

 Empire amount to about twenty billion feet and Federal 

 holdings to about ten billion. The timber on the average 



PINE INFECTED WITH BLISTER 



Four-year white pine tree diseased with white pine blister disease. Badly swollen 

 but not yet showing fruiting bodies of the parasite. 



