20 BULLETIN 1186, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
the blister-rust menace several of the nurseries of Belgium and 
France specializing in conifers for exportation discontinued the 
growing of black currants, since this species caused the most damage 
to pine. In other nurseries where the currants are of major im- 
portance the cultivation of five-leaved pines has been abandoned. 
The nursery beds shown in Figure 11 are in one of the largest of the 
French forest nurseries, situated near Orleans. These were started 
since the war and contain Austrian and Scotch pines, but no Ameri- 
can five-needle. pines, the growing of which was discontinued. 
BRITISH ISLES. 
British foresters declare the rust to be altogether too prevalent, 
but have made no efforts to control it. The fungus has raised more 
interest and concern among fruit growers than: it has among the 
foresters, because the former feared a decrease in their black- -cur- 
rant crop, entailing financial loss. 
Fic. 10.—A 17-year-old white-pine plantation near Epinal in the French - Vosges. 
Blister rust has attacked 52 per cent of the trees. his entire plantation is ex- 
posed to further infection from black-currant bushes growing 600 feet distant. It 
is doubtful whether merchantable timber will ever be obtained from it. 
Trials made at Oxford, England, to check the rust by spraying 
Ribes proved quite unsuccessful (2, p. 24). Reference to the spray- 
ing of young pines with a fungicide is made in the Quarterly Jour- 
nal of Forestry (5), witha statement that in a Belgian nursery seed- 
lings sprayed with a 1 per cent solution of potassium permanganate 
had been effectively protected. Chemically treating diseased parts of 
stem or limb may retard the development of the disease, but results 
thus far obtained are rather uncertain. Silvicultural methods will 
never control the fungus as long as Ribes bushes are permitted to 
grow in the neighborhood, but the opinion prevails that such methods 
may slightly decrease the amount of infection through better aera- 
tion and the entrance of more sunlight into the stand, especially if 
it occupies a moist site. If the black currants had been removed 
from the neighborhood of the plantation at Oxford, it would not 
be in its present poor condition (fig. 12). 
Control of a forest disease on as extensive a basis as the blister- 
rust work in the United States has no parallel in foreign forest prac- 
tice and presents a striking contrast to the limited measures of con- 
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