MAINE AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. I5 



Apple Decay. For several years a large amount of attention 

 was given to the subject of apple decays, both to determine the 

 nature and distribution of such forms of apple diseases in 

 Maine and to study conditions favorable to their control. More 

 or less of a handicap has been experienced in attempting to 

 work out the practical applications of this phase of the work 

 on account of no opportunities to conduct cold storage experi- 

 ments. A cold storage plant at Highmoor Farm would allow 

 the taking up and study of very important problems on a com- 

 mercial scale which now cannot be touched. 



The black-rot fungus and the common blue mold have been 

 found responsible for the two most important apple rots of 

 Maine. The former, like the leaf-spot, caused by the same 

 fungus, can be traced directly to cankers on the limbs. Cutting 

 out these cankers, general orchard sanitation, and spraying have 

 all been found to be helpful in holding this disease in check. 

 ]\Iuch of the loss from blue mold has been found to be the 

 direct result of careless or rough handling, the fungus as a rule 

 gaining entrance through injuries in the skin. 



Bitter rot and brown rot have not been found to be of so 

 much economic importance in Maine as in some other parts of 

 the country. The former appears to be quite widely distributed 

 and some cases recently observed suggest that it may do more 

 damage than was first supposed. 



Quite a number of other forms of apple decay have been 

 found in Maine, two of them new and only a few of them of 

 much importance. One of the new forms of decay is of special 

 interest in that it appears to be fairly common and the fungi 

 which produce it are capable of attacking several other quite 

 unrelated plants. It is known as the Fusarium decay. At least 

 two different species of Fusarium have been isolated from 

 decaying apple and several other species of this genus have been 

 found to be able to rot apple fruit on inoculation. 



Diseases of Wood. Of the wood diseases canker and twig 

 blights are by far the most common and of the former the black- 

 rot canker is of the greatest economic importance in Maine. 

 Up to a short time ago it was felt that the European apple tree 

 canker was not a factor in Maine orcharding. More recent 

 observations indicate that in all probability this is by no means 



