PROCEEDINGS OF THE FARMERS' CLUB. 93 



llio limb (urns black, and dii>s tU)\vn to llic tiiink, and s(i continncs till tlio 

 wluile tri'c is dead. It cuniiiK-nciHl throe 3'cars a<^») among the Siberian 

 crabs and killed them, and now the j^rafted trees are attacked. No insect 

 can be discovered, thoujAli a kind of p:nm oozes out of the younjif growth. 

 I'ldess I ca;i find a remetly soon, I shall lose 100 fine trees jnst beginning 

 to bear. Cold weather has not afTected them, although 40 deg. below zero 

 when snuiU. I have peach trees that stood the same degree without pro- 

 t.M-tion." 



.Nfr. Benjamin Summers, Vermillion, Erie Co , Ohio. — Some 25 years ago 

 a tri'e in the southwest corner of my orchard became affected in a somewhat 

 similar manner as were many trees in various sections of this country. ^Ve 

 then called it fire blight, from the sudden withering of the limb or twig 

 diseased. The disease on Mr. Cooke's trees may be different, but his short 

 description very well describes the fire blight. It killed many trees — the 

 one first affected in my orchard entirely; and it spread to the other trees 

 80 that some 20 or 30 were going the same way in that corner of the 

 orchard. Learning or judging that it must be the work of an insect, though 

 too small for my discovery, I undertook the seemingly Herculean task of 

 cutting off and burning the limbs as fast as they died. It did not prove as 

 great a task as I expected, and after following it up a few years two or 

 three times in a season, I saved all but one tree, and they are now healthy 

 and entirely free from the disease. I communicated these facts to an agri- 

 cultural pap?r and they were published in the U. S. Patent OiBce reports 

 some twenty years since. If it is the same disease, I am confident a 

 thorough excision of the limb below wliere dead, and burning them, jjersis- 

 i>id in, will cure. 



Mr. Solon Robinson. — I have pureucd the same course but not always 

 with success, because though the effects are the same, there is probably a 

 variety of causes. Win. S. Carpenter, John G. Bergen, A. S. Fuller and 

 other experienced fruit growers, have repeatedly given their opinions upon 

 this "fire blight" in the discussions of the Fann(?rs' Club without coining 

 to any definite determinatit)n as to cause or cure. All are agreed in one 

 thing, however, and that is to cut away the affected limbs as soon as dis- 

 covered. The present season, in the vicinity of New York, many limbs, 

 in some cases entire trees, have put on the appearance of fire blights, in 

 conscfjuence of being infested with worms — a new order of caterpillars. 

 It remain.^ to be seen what may be the lasting effects. I wish we could 

 tell Mr. Cooke how; to save his apple trees. The same disease has killed 

 many thousands in the New England States. 



A Remedy for Apple Tree Borers. 



-Mr. W. Taylor, Berlin, X. Y., has accidentally discovered that blue clay 

 is a perfect protection against the borers. He makes a mortar and plas- 

 ters the trees up as high as the b(.>rers would work, making the application 

 Hpring and autumn. The remedy has been worth so much to him that he 

 wishes to make it universally known, by having it printed in the proceed- 

 ings of the Farmers' Club. 



