134 The Connecticut Pomological Society 



photograph will show you. I am afraid the little peach is going 

 to spread, and prove destructive. 



The brown rot: this disease is caused by a fungus. It is a 

 disease which was very destructive during the past season. The 

 Georgia peach -growers had a very bad, rainy spell of weather 

 during the very period when the peaches were ripening, and it 

 caused immense destruction. As the season advanced north- 

 ward the Michigan peaches began to rot, and they were afiected 

 in the same way. They had rain and rain right through the 

 ripening season, and the result was that it affected them 

 seriously, and whole varieties went for nothing. This last year, 

 in far the greater part of the area of the Michigan peach belt, 

 the crop was a total failure. In many cases I saw growers feed- 

 ing green fruit in order to avoid the loss occasioned by the 

 fungus running from the fruit into the trees. This fungus dis- 

 ease is probably preventable by spraying. It is difficult to do 

 so, however. Several years ago the Delaware Station conducted 

 some experiments in which they demonstrated the success of 

 spraying, but the chief difficulty is in applying it. 



Another very curious trouble in the peach orchard has been 

 the cause of winter-kill. Here is a photograph of a tree all 

 broken down while weighted with fruit because of having a 

 defective heart. 



Now, going from the peach to other fruits, I have here a 

 portrait of the pear blight. That is an actual photograph. The 

 photograph was made from a microscopic enlargement, and then 

 the slide was made from that. The pear blight is an old 

 customer, and a subject that 1 hardly like to say much about, as 

 there has been so much said and written on that subject, but, at 

 the same time, many of you are interested in the matter. This 

 photograph represents a twig showing the progress of the disease. 

 The disease has run down here and stopped at this point. If, 

 at the close of the season, in October and November, the 

 disease is still active, such cases survive the winter to start 

 another year. The great point is to get rid of these hold-over 

 cases. If we can corner it there, and prevent it doing work in 

 the fall and early spring, we can entirely eliminate it from the 

 orchard. In the spring, when the sap flows readily, the hold- 

 over blight increases in activity, and the gum exuded runs down 



