BLIGHT AND OTHER TREE EISEASES. Ill 



season), a liberal top-dressing of muriate or sulphate of pot- 

 ash should be applied, and annually, for several years, or 

 until the blight disappears, at least three hundred pounds 

 per acre of the same. But wherever pear trees cannot be irri- 

 gated, extra-close mowing in time of drought, and fertilizing 

 every spring to keep up a fair summer growth must be 

 resorted to, not forgetting the potash. Of course, in such 

 seasons, thinning of the fruit, necessary more or less every 

 year, should be much more severe, though my former or- 

 chard has never been irrigated or had fruit thinned, but is 

 now immune to blight. 



And, now, a few words as to the various other forms of 

 disease which attack the roots of fruit trees, such as crown- 

 gall, root-rot, etc., all of which unquestionably have their 

 origin in soils exhausted of potash, deeply stirred and satu- 

 rated, due to continued rains, followed by high temperature. 

 I have experimented so thoroughly, for years, that I know 

 this to be a fact, and have demonstrated in my orchard here 

 again, that diseased trees, if closely root-pruned and planted 

 on firm ground plentifully supplied with potash, will recover 

 entirely in a year or so. The scientists all make the same 

 mistake in reference to these root diseases that they do to 

 blight, imagining that the gejrms are external to the trees and 

 in the soil. There is no such thing as infected soil. I have 

 repeatedly root-pruned healthy peach, plum and apricot 

 trees and set them directly in holes from which diseased 

 trees were dug, placing crown-galls in contact with the stub 

 roots, and have never been able to infect a single healthy 

 tree, when the holes were first well supplied with ashes or 

 other form of potash and trees top-dressed with it afterward 

 for several years. 



I will again state that every form of bacterial disease 

 attacking grain of all kinds is naturally in the seed, and de- 

 velops only when the favoring conditions are furnished, such 

 as a deep, loose soil saturated to excess, and followed by 

 high temperature. In all the eastern half of the United 

 States where rains are abundant, the plow should be ban- 

 ished forever from the small grain fields, sowing the seed 



