22 MAINE) AGRICUIwTURAIv EXP:E;RIME;NT STATION. I909. 



over any considerable portion of white pine area of the State. 

 Therefore, the writer has made it a point to investigate the con- 

 ditions with regard to the white pine in every part of the State 

 to which his duties called him during the past season. Many 

 acres of pine growth were examined, distributed over and giv- 

 ing a pretty fair representation of that part of the State lying 

 south of the Canadian Pacific Railroad except Franklin and 

 Washington counties. The data thus gathered leads to the 

 following conclusions, namely : There are two well marked 

 leaf trouble of the white pine in Maine. One, which consti- 

 tuted nearly all of the so-called "pine blight" of the State in 1908, 

 is plainly due to adverse weather conditions and while it may 

 occur again at any time is only temporary and need not be feared 

 like a contagious parasitic disease. The other the writer has 

 found only in a few scattered localities, and, so far as 

 observed during two seasons, is not spreading, at least not to 

 an appreciable extent, and no single fungus parasite could be 

 found constantly associated with the diseased needles. The rea- 

 sons for these conclusions will be given somewhat briefly. The 

 reader is also referred to the report for the current year (1908) 

 of the Hon. E. E. Ring, Forest Commissioner, State of Maine.* 



The discussion which follows should be distinctly understood 

 to be confined to what has popularly been called "pine blight" 

 in Maine and is not based on observations elsewhere in New 

 England, although correspondence and other available informa- 

 tion indicates that some of the trouble elsewhere may be due 

 to similar causes.t 



The common, or practically universal leaf and twig blight 

 of the pine in Maine observed by the writer in the spring 

 and summer of 1908 was characterized by the sudden wither- 

 ing and death of tufts of entire needles early in the spring, 

 which needles soon turned a deep, rich, reddish brown. In 

 cases of severe injury where entire trees were killed it was 

 impossible at a distance to distinguish from scorching by 

 fire. Young trees were invariably more severely afifected 



* Morse, W. J. White Pine Blight in Maine. Rept. of Forest Com- 

 missioner for 1907-08, p. 20, Augusta, 1908. 



t Clinton, G. P. Rept. 14. Conn. Exp. Sta. p. 353, 1907 ; Stone, G. E. 

 Rept. 20, Mass. Exp. Sta. p. 125, 1907. 



