REPORT OF THE STATE liOTANIST I9II 7 



disease was supposed to have attacked the chestnut trees about 

 Cooperstown, that locahty was visited and under the guidance of 

 one famihar with the locahty and interested in the woodland sup- 

 posed to be affected, a careful search for it was made. No evidences 

 of the presence of the fungus that causes the chestnut bark disease 

 were found either in the standing trees or in the branches, stumps 

 and young shoots of trees that had been cut because they were sup- 

 posed to have been attacked by it. The real cause of the trouble 

 was not satisfactorily ascertained, but it seemed probable that the 

 severe drouths of three preceding seasons may have contributed to 

 the trouble. 



Having heard that the disease was advancing northward from 

 New York City through the counties along the east bank of the 

 Hudson river, and had already reached Columbia county, a visit 

 was made to the town of Sand Lake in Rensselaer county. Chestnut 

 trees are common in the woods of that region but my efforts to find 

 there any evidences of the fungus that causes the chestnut bark 

 disease were wholly unsuccessful. Subsequent investigations by 

 others have indicated its presence in both the southern and northern 

 part of the county. In this case as in others a new attack appears 

 to have been made in places widely separated from any others. In 

 this respect the disease is specially dangerous, the germs or spores 

 being evidently carried by insects, birds or some other agent than 

 winds. It is therefore of the utmost importance that a close watch 

 be kept for the appearance of the disease wherever chestnut trees 

 abound and that trees found affected by it should be cut and their 

 bark burned as soon as possible. The spread of the disease has been 

 so rapid and its work so virulent during the two years past that 

 constant watchfulness and prompt action whenever it appears are 

 essential to its suppression. It is probable that this destructive out- 

 break of this remarkable disease is sporadic and brought about by 

 an unusual combination of favoring circumstances and will not long 

 continue to be so destructive. Nature generally finds some way to 

 check such extraordinary action and restore the equilibrium of her 

 forces, but sometimes the proper conditions are not restored till 

 after great damage has been done. It will not do therefore to sit 

 quietly down and wait for such a consummation. We may by 

 prompt and judicious action aid the natural processes and thereby 

 diminish and shorten the ravages of the evil. 



In continuance of my investigation of the marsh flora of the 

 Adirondacks, Peacock marsh in the town of North Elba was visited. 

 It is located about three miles south of Lake Placid and nearly east 



