124 THE NEW HORTICULTURE. 



experiment that blight is entirely a matter of conditions of 

 temperature, moisture and pruning. Also, that all its vary- 

 ing phases, as well as hitherto unexplained phenomena, can 

 be completely accounted for under the hypothesis of a natural, 

 or at least present, existence of the germs in limited num- 

 bers in the sap of all pear trees, which, under certain given 

 conditions, are capable of multiplying beyond conception, 

 resulting in what we call "blight." I will show plainly how, 

 from analogies drawn from the known actions of such organ- 

 isms in the human system, that bacteria, having once effected 

 a lodgment or developed in the sap, corresponding to the 

 blood in us, of those pear trees in New England, all other 

 pear trees in the country must almost necessarily now have 

 some of the bacteria in their sap. I will also make it clear 

 why this dreaded disease has never prevailed in California, or 

 but twice to a very limited extent in the whole coast country 

 of Texas, though pear trees of the old varieties, unproductive 

 but healthy, have been growing here for twenty-five years. I 

 think I can also satisfy everyone that the conditions of blight 

 are so completely under our control that pear orchards may 

 be planted from henceforth which, like the old original (the 

 January number of the Horticultural Visitor, Kirmundy, 111., 

 contains a photograph of this tree) seedling Sudduth pear 

 tree, now standing near Springfield, 111., ten feet in circum- 

 ference of trunk, fifty-five feet high and seventy-five years old, 

 will long outlive the planter. This grand old pear tree, in 

 perfect health, still bearing enormous crops, a landmark for 

 all the surrounding country, is a towering monument to the 

 infinite superiority of nature and her methods. While man, 

 with his science and his plows, his hoes and his cultivators, 

 has ripped and torn and scratched the surface of the ground ; 

 has dug his big holes and spread the roots most carefully by 

 hand, a single tiny seed was dropped upon the firm but kindly 

 bosom of the earth, and there to-day stands in silent majesty 

 this evidence of her skill. Where, now, are the cultivated, 

 pruned and fertilized pear orchards of that state and the whole 

 country, upon which untold money and weary days of labor 

 have been wasted, as well as bright hopes wrecked in those 



