BLIGHT. 137 



ing, and annual fertilizing after growth starts, never putting 

 a knife to them until after the leaves are out in spring. If 

 water can be had in addition, that ought to furnish absolute 

 immunity from blight, for it is simply a question of healthy, 

 uniform, continuous motion of the sap during the preceding 

 growing season. The sap must not be allowed to thicken 

 prematurely and go to rest. Of course, every one knows 

 that it does not rise or fall, as we commonly express it, but 

 keeps in motion for a stated period and then rests. Where 

 water cannot be applied freely in severe spring or early sum- 

 mer drouth, the next best thing for such trees is to remove a 

 large part of the fruit and prune heavily. This will stimulate 

 a movement of the sap. The universal exemption of old seed- 

 ling pear trees everywhere, and, with the exception given, 

 the general exemption of this whole coast country, where the 

 water is at no time lower than four or five feet from the sur- 

 face, proves that a continuous movement of the sap in sum- 

 mer has a great deal to do with the absence of blight the 

 following season. Whether clean culture or sod be adopted, 

 pear trees should not go completely to rest during the natural 

 growing period. 



And now, in closing the discussion of this important sub- 

 ject, for a clearer understanding of it and the relation of the 

 external and internal origin theory to the facts in the case, I 

 will recapitulate and give a condensed statement of the most 

 important of them, so that my readers can clearly see that 

 my internal theory perfectly covers and explains, while the 

 external theory of attack is at variance with them all. 



1. Blight attacks isolated trees, miles away from all other 

 pear trees. I saw a large bearing Le Conte away up in the 

 mountains, near Eureka Springs, Ark., thus situated, with 

 three large dead, blighted limbs in the center, from an attack 

 the year before, but from indifference on the part of the 

 owner, never cut out. Is the whole air filled with blight? 



2. Though all authorities affirm that such dead wood is 

 the nidus or harbor for the bacteria, there those three limbs 

 stood, right among the green leaves, and not a sign of blight 

 that season. 



