426 Transactions of the American Institute. 



are making a good medium growth of wood ; not too uracil or too 

 near none at all. It does occur most frequently in trees which stand 

 in a moist, deep, dark and rich soil, and without a sod upon it ; or in 

 places where the winter snow-drifts remain late in the spring, retard- 

 ing the production of leaves until the spring is so far advanced that a 

 few hot days hasten an excessive flow of sap, for which the top of 

 the tree is unprepared. 



" The only way to prevent this disease is to plant plums upon rather 

 a dry soil, of kinds least subject to the blight, and which kinds these 

 are, almost every nurseryman of experience can name in a minute if 

 lie will. Mulch with chip-manure, four inches deep and four foot 

 wide around each tree, in March or April, and if the soil is very deep 

 and rich then root-prune a little once in two years, in the fall, after 

 the leaves have fallen." 



Mr. D. B. Bruen — Bitter plums and bitter and sour cherries are 

 attacked by this disease, but trees which have vigorous leafage and 

 bear sweet fruit never suffer from it. 



S. E. Todd — The ground is wanting in potash and lime where this 

 malady prevails. If four or five bushels of wood ashes and two or 

 three of lime are stirred in the soil around the 'trees the black knot 

 will disappear. 



Mr. Thos. Cavanach — I have known black knot to attack trees 

 where lime and potash were plentiful in the soil. I think easterly 

 storms, followed by a hot sun, will originate it. I knew an orchard of 

 five acres totally destroyed when two years old by this disease, and it 

 occurred after a cold east storm, and commenced on the east side of 

 the orchard and passed through it in two weeks 



Poor Food foe Stock. 



Jeremiah O'Brien, Oneida County, In". Y. — I have long wished to 

 ask your advice with regard to the matter written below, but I waited, 

 hoping some one else would do so, or at least that something would 

 be said or written among you that would throw some light on the sub- 

 ject. Know, then, that right here adjoining some of the finest dairy 

 lands in the country is a large tract in which dairying or stock-raising 

 cannot be carried on at all on account of the great difficulty we have 

 in getting cattle to live, barely to live, through the winter, unless fed 

 on something besides hay, such as roots or mill-feed. 



This extra feed is accounted neither convenient nor profitable, so the 

 cows are usually left to get on as best they can on hay alone, and 

 here is how they do it : About the middle of winter their dung becomes 



