316 
JOUKNAL OF THE KOYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
Frank traces the rapid spread of the disease in the Altenland to the 
overcrowding of fruit trees and to the presence of open ditches in the 
neighbourhood of the orchards, causing too much moisture, and so pre- 
senting conditions favouring the growth of parasitic fungi. While such 
adverse conditions should be remedied, he recommends, as the only 
method of stamping out the disease, the gathering and burning of all 
diseased leaves, which, he considers, need not be attended with more 
difficulty than the yearly harvesting of the fruit. 
There has been no opportunity of our following the disease in Kent in 
its various phases throughout the year, and this notice is necessarily im- 
perfect, but it is very important that Cherry growers should at once be 
made acquainted with the cause of the injury to the orchards and the 
remedy recommended by Frank. It is the more essential that steps 
should be taken for the destruction of the dead leaves, because of the 
abundant presence of the living fungus that has been observed in them. 
It would be a certain source of danger to the new crop if these active 
fungi were to be permitted to grow on the dead leaves while they remain 
attached to the trees. To be efficient, this collecting and burning of the 
dead leaves must not be done in a solitary orchard here and there, but 
must be carried out throughout Kent. No doubt this must entail much 
trouble and considerable expense. But the neglect of undertaking this 
operation, though costly, means the disappearance of the Cherry orchards 
of Kent in a very few years. The removal and burning of the dead leaves 
has been successful on the Continent, and there is no reason why it should 
not be equally successful in Kent. 
