Arsenical Poisoning of Fruit Trees. 21 
some detail what we find in the case of our sick trees. No one can 
tell how many sick trees we have. I have examined several thousand, 
however, and in stating this it is to be understood that no trees suffer¬ 
ing from neglect or blight or sunscald or nitre or trees in which there 
was any evident complication of troubles or even mechanical injuries 
are included. 
Plate IV. is a photograph of an Anjou pear tree, taken in Sep¬ 
tember 1909. The trees in the background are already attacked but 
will live two or possibly three years yet. The soil is a sandy loam 
free from alkali and seepage. A hole was dug at the base of the 
tree and there was no water at a depth of four and a half feet. The 
photograph shows where a large limb was cut off for examination. 
The number of individual trees which have been analyzed is 
eighty-one, sixty-seven in connection with this bulletin and fourteen 
in connection with Bulletin 131, and of the eighty-one samples ex¬ 
amined I have personally taken fifty-five, possibly more. I have not 
known the history of the trees in more than a few instances. Orchard- 
ist* do not, except in rare cases, keen a written record of their doings 
and I find that any other record is of little value; more satisfying than 
none, it is true, but not to be depended on. This is in no wise a re¬ 
flection upon the veracity of orchardists or others, but simply the state¬ 
ment of a very well known fact. i. e.. that no one remembers their ordi¬ 
nary, every-dav doings for more than a very short time, especially 
when these doings may be repeated quite frequently but at irregular 
intervals. 
I have arrived at the point where I do not consider statements 
made pertaining to acts done much prior to the current year, and even 
then I consider a number of things before I place much value on the 
statements. Thu, is very unfortunate for it necessitates the rejection 
of much information that might be very valuable and it increases our 
difficulties when the help that the information would afford is badly 
needed. I have been told very many times of trees that had never been 
sprayed; those trees, however, almost uniformly proved to contain 
arsenic, copner and lead. I admit that thi' is not absolutely rigid 
proof that the trees had been sprayed, but in as much as we have been 
using preparations of copper and arsenic, lime and arsenic and lead 
and arsenic with which to spray trees and as these substances eventual¬ 
ly find their way to the ground from which the tree draws its nourish¬ 
ment, I submit that one is justified in interpreting the presence of 
these three substances, or even arsenic and either one of the others, 
in the woody tissue of the tree, as conclusive that the most probable 
source of the arsenic and lead or arsenic and copper was spray material 
which had'been applied, rather than any original occurrence of these 
substances in the soil. This would seem the more probable as spraying 
of fruit trees has been practiced for not less than twenty-eight years 
and has been general in our section for about fifteen years. As the 
trees in question are usually from fourteen to thirty or more years 
of age, I prefer to accept the testimony of the chemical examination 
as to whether the tree has been sprayed or not rather than the state- 
