94 STATE POMOLOQICAL SOCIETY. 



there is a malignant blight, which seems innate to the pear, and 

 which I have some fears will prove in time a serious obstacle to 

 its cultivation. This blight has appeared on my pear trees the 

 past season. It has mostly been confined to the limbs of the 

 trees, and seems to be produced by sqme virus matter in the sap, 

 yet I am not certain that this is a correct conclusion in the case. 

 I think the blight has not yet become very extensive in our State, 

 but in some of the Western and Middle States it has already in- 

 fected the young pear trees to a fearful extent. As soon as there 

 is any appearance of disease in a limb, let it bo immediately re- 

 moved, and thereby it may be that the body of the tree and main 

 portion of the limbs will be preserved. 



Fruits of most kinds, and especially the apple, have been very 

 abundant in our markets this season, but this abundance has not 

 been furnished from the product of our own State, but from neigh- 

 boring States, and at a very low price. Yet owing to the exceed- 

 ing scarcity of money, the non-bondholding portion of the com- 

 munity has been deprived of that luxury whicli in former years 

 they have been freely supplied with. As far as I have been 

 informed, the belt of country including the counties of Oxford, 

 Androscoggin, Franklin, the greater part of Kennebec and Som- 

 erset, embraces that section of the State in which the caterpillar 

 has been the most destructive to the apple crop. In other sec- 

 tions of the State I am informed that the yield of apples has been 

 quite abundant. 



The prospect of a good crop of apples another season, I think 

 is fair from the indications of the fruit buds upon trees whose 

 leaves were not entirely eaten off by the caterpillars last year, but 

 we must not expect fruit from trees that were stripped of their 

 leaves at a time in the season when the fruit buds were being 

 developed preparatory to a growth of fruit the next year. For it 

 will require one season of growth for the tree to recuperate its 

 lost vigor, and mature the germ in the bud indispensable to the 

 production of fruit the succeeding season. From my own obser- 

 vation in regard to the appearance of the caterpillar cones on the 

 limbs of the trees, I do not look for the ravages of that enemy to 

 a very great extent another year. It is true I have discovered a 

 few of the cones of the Forest tree caterpillar, which may be dis- 

 tinguished from those of the tent caterpillar by their peculiar 

 glossiness and a darker color, and their encircling the limbs, form- 

 ing a ring around it, while the tent caterpillar forms its cone only 



