Arsenical Poisoning of Fruit Trees. 
9 
merged in water but this is a condition nowihere obtaining among all 
the cases studied. The prevalence of this trouble in orchards on high, 
well drained lands is a sufficient answer to this. 
The Area Involved. 
In Bulletin 131 I stated that the principal orchard growing sec¬ 
tions of this state were probably involved. It is now certain that the 
extent is wider than the boundaries of this state. There is no dispo¬ 
sition on my part to seek consolation in the fact that I believe 
many sections of the country to be suffering, in a less degree I hope, 
from the same ills. 
The Number of Trees Affected. 
Under this caption in Bulletin 131 I stated that it would be diffi¬ 
cult to obtain data on which to base even a rough estimate of the num¬ 
ber of trees suffering from this trouble. I have visited many orchards 
since I wrote the above statement and am now convinced that it is 
difficult to find a fifteen-year old orchard in the state wholly free from 
this difficulty. There are probably a few but not many. I know of an 
orchard, the owner of which said to me: “I must have a thousand 
sick trees.” I think that this was an overestimate, but it serves to con¬ 
vey a definite idea of how very prevalent the trouble is in some or¬ 
chards. I have seen a pear orchard in worse condition even than this 
apple orchard. Both of these orchards, though many miles apart and 
on very different land, are within this state. I have not visited the 
apple growing sections of the southwestern portion of the state and 
so do not know the condition of affairs there but in the rest of the 
state no section is entirely free from this trouble. It is found in Lar¬ 
imer County as well as in Otero, Fremont, Delta and Mesa counties, 
and this represents a distance of nearly 350 miles from east to west 
and 200 miles from north to south. I am convinced that the number 
of trees already seriously affected by this trouble are not numbered 
by hundreds, but rather by tens of thousands. 
This may not be an inappropriate place to state again, as I stated 
in Bulletin 131, that publication on this matter was not the result of 
any sudden impulse, nor of any desire to obtain a certain notoriety by 
creating suspicion and alarm in the minds of any class of orchardists, 
much less to protest against the general practice of spraying, but the 
publication was made simply because I was fully convinced of the 
sufficiency of the proofs that great injury had already resulted from 
the practice, particularly from the irrationally ultra manner in which 
the practice has been carried on, and that it was perfectly proper and 
right that the truth should be made known. The facts were presented 
conservatively. My colleagues agreed that it was wise to publish the 
results as simple facts. This is what I did and this is the only purpose 
that I have in view in the present bulletin. 
