THIRTY-FOURTH FRUIT-GROWERS ' C0X^T:XTI0N. 



89 



by Dr. AVoodbridge, makes a very good covering. Any grafting wax 

 will do the same. Now, the condition of that tree is this, that the 

 oranges have become as good as any on the neighboring trees. I really 

 wish I knew what caused it. I told yon I would tell about my experi- 

 ments more than my knowledge. The bark was removed on account of 

 the covering of wax which I gave it. As the cambium came down and 

 reformed, it was renewed along, and it seemed to improve from that 

 time on. I have almost cured that, but not quite, because there are 

 exudations and stains from that bark in the outside of the wound, as 

 if the disease were going on. Those are the conditions that Professor 

 Smith speaks of. I agree with him that the conditions should be uni- 

 form, but where you and I and all of us water our trees quite regularly, 

 cultivate them in about the same way year after year and month after 

 month, and fertilize them in a regular way. Ave hardly know what change 

 to make. This year I made a change in some work that I did to my 

 trees. There were a great many weeds under the trees, and I hired a 

 gang of men not to cut weeds, but to loosen the earth close to every tree 

 I had in my orchard. I don't know whether any good is coming from 

 it. but I don't think any harm is coming. I had a boss man to see that 

 they didn't dig the tree more than they did the earth. I have had very 

 little of that gum disease at the base of the tree, but I had the idea that 

 possibly the respiration of that tree was affected by the crowding of the 

 bark against the tree, and that that possibly comes from the growing 

 cutward of the tree against the soil. And although my soil is not a 

 hard soil — it is a gravelly loam — I have trees that have been in there for 

 thirty-one years, and I think the soil should be stirred up sometimes. 

 1 am going to clean the trunk of that part of the tree where that 

 guromy exudation is and where the scale is. I don't think I am going 

 to take the care I used to in removing the bark and anything that might 

 be infectious. I used to spread a piece of gunny sack close around the 

 tree, and everything I scraped off I would put in a tin box and carry 

 it away and burn it. I have not studied it as Professor Smith has. with 

 his apparatus, to determine the infection. I just guessed it might be 

 so. and did that. 



I have also done another thing. A tree doctor applied to two of my 

 trees a preparation that he said would cure this disease, and if he 

 didn't he would not ask for any pay. I thought I would take at the 

 same time some of the coal tar we get at the gas works. I took some of 

 that and covered the exposed part, not putting wax on that. This man 

 came afterwards and saw his tree had exudations in it. He said, "I 

 forgot to slit that tree up," and he did so. and since then I have not 

 seen any exudations on his tree, nor on the tree that I treated with that 

 coal tar. So, you see, while I have had some experience, I don't know 

 much. I thank you for listening to me. 



MR. LEROY. I would like to say I have had the same experience in 

 my orchard as Professor Paine has had on the slitting process, which I 

 obtained first from ]\Ir. C. C. Teague. I don't know whether he was the 

 originator of it or not. but I have used four or five of the different 

 preparations like beeswax,- carbolic acid, and tar. I have used all of 

 those with practically the same results until I came to the slitting of the 



