PEACH AND THE PEAR. 28 1 



place to Study it, experiment with it, and do all we 

 possibly can to arrest its ravages. 



Science is progressive. I don't despair of success, 

 and I believe we are now on the right road to accomplish 

 not only in the vegetable world but in the animal, the 

 destruction of the right hand weapon of the fell destroyer, 

 the invisible, but mighty disease-germ, and I further 

 believe that the day is near at hand when each zymotic 

 disease will be known by its own peculiar form of 

 microbe. 



The great starting place to prevent blight is in the 

 seed. Our seedlings, as now raised, are, doubtless, 

 grown from seed taken promiscuously from budded fruit 

 of all kinds, and are grown in land, perhaps, contiguous 

 to orchards containing trees more or less blighted. The 

 buds and grafts for these seedlings are taken from trees 

 growing among trees diseased as well as healthy, and 

 what can we expect as a result ? Certainly only trees 

 that will grow up with delicate constitutions, produce 

 succulent wood, and holding out inviting hands for an 

 early attack of blight. Trees should be raised from 

 the seed of the wild, or common choke pears, and buds 

 and grafts should be obtained, in turn, only from trees 

 raised from the proper seedlings. If the National 

 Agricultural Department, at Washington, would devote 

 some of its talent and money to the supplying this 

 country with healthy seedlings for the pear, and also 



