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THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN. 
MICHIGAN HORTICULTURISTS. 
At the annual meeting of the Michigan State Horticultural 
Society at Ithaca, December 1-3, Professor M. B. Waite of the 
National Division of Pomology will treat of plant diseases. 
The matter of inspection orchards and nurseries will be pre¬ 
sented by Professor Hedrick of the Agricultural College, who 
is nursery inspector under the law passed last winter. He will 
tell of his experience in its operation, as well as advance ideas 
concerning the general subject. Probably some of the nursery¬ 
men of the state will be heard from upon the same topic. 
R. Morrill, Benton Harbor, Mich., at a recent meeting of 
fruit growers of Michigan said: “ Michigan is getting to a con¬ 
dition where it produces an enormous amount of fruit. We 
must begin to handle it in carloads. Buyers are looking for 
that trade everywhere, but are not looking for it in a place 
where, when they order a thousand baskets of grapes or peaches, 
they don’t know what that means. If they order a thousand 
fifth baskets of peaches, and it means fifths, sixths, and sev¬ 
enths when they get them, they are not going to deal there. 
Other places are taking the business we should have. If the 
buyer can sit in his office and can telegraph over here to the 
head of an organization, ‘We want a carload of apples, stand¬ 
ard barrels and standard packing,’ and a man can quote back a 
price to him, and furnish the fruit immediately, even if col¬ 
lected from a dozen people, and that fruit opens up exactly as 
the buyer expects, you at once have a trade established. Now, 
where in Michigan can we do that ? But when you have 
established a standard, and keep working to it, with the trans¬ 
portation facilities you have (unequaled by any fruitgrowing 
state in the Union), you have the key to the situation. Until 
that is done we are all at sea. I am sorry that, with 500 fruit¬ 
growers in the vicinity of St. Joseph and Benton Harbor, there 
are not more here. I wish they were, for all this is a matter 
of self-preservation. I venture that, unless some calamity 
happens to our fruit, within ten years many of our people will 
find it difficult to pay their taxes ; many, perhaps, will go out 
of the business in disgust, unless they are willing to use busi¬ 
ness-like methods, as do other business men.” 
CAUSE OF BLIGHT AND YELLOWS. 
Dr. Erwin F. Smith, pathologist of the U. S. Department of 
Agriculture, is satisfied that peach yellows cannot be cured by 
any methods of culture, fertilization, or other treatment. The 
only thing to do is to dig out the tree, root and branch, 
and burn it up. He says that he has proved beyond a possi¬ 
bility of doubt that peach yellows is contagious, and communi¬ 
cated from one tree to another. 
An interesting feature of his recent lecture in Rochester was 
a stereopticon, which showed sections of the leaves and stalks 
of plants. In these enlarged view^, it was seen that through 
the leaf are veins or canals through which liquids were pass¬ 
ing. The veins or tubes were connected with a larger one 
extending through the branches and body of the tree. In 
every leaf there are openings on which bacteria gather. 
These bacteria, increasing with marvelous rapidity, produce an 
acid which eats away the ends of the leaf tubes. Then the 
bacteria descend through the tubes into the leaf, and thus 
journey on into the branches and down to the main stalk or 
trunk. 
Dr. Smith has proved beyond doubt that this is the method 
of the bacteria which causes blight in the tomato and cabbage. 
Pear blight also works in this way, and, possibly, this is also 
the method of peach yellows bacteria. He says, “ there is not 
a particle of doubt that pear blight is caused by bacteria.” He 
has often found germs of bacteria two feet below the diseased 
part of the limb of the pear, and in cutting out blighted wood, 
one should cut at least two feet below the lowest darkened 
point of the bark. 
POISON IVY. 
A correspondent writes: “We notice in a catalogue an offer 
of Rhus radicans, known as Ampelopsis Hoggii in England. 
This is Rhus toxicodendron (or a variety of it, at best) and 
we think nurserymen should be warned before they order it. 
There is quite enough of it in America now. We knew Am¬ 
pelopsis Hoggii, so-called in England, and the year after we 
started here, we had three plants sent over to compare with 
Rhus toxicodendron, and could see no difference in anyway 
between the two. Others who saw them said the same. If 
you will make some notice in your paper, we think every nur¬ 
seryman likely to import will be warned.” 
NEW YORK FLORISTS’ CLUB. 
The report of the tariff committee of the New York Florists’ 
Club is as follows : 
The special tariff committee beg to report that they have given the 
proper classification of plant and nursery material careful consideration 
during the time they have had this matter in charge, and in view of 
the present situation of tariff matters before Congress and the custom 
authorities, recent legislation, etc., request that the committee be now 
discharged. 
It may be a matter of gratification, whatever the views of individual 
members may be in favor of either high tariff or low rates of duty, that 
the principle of uniformity of classification, for which the committee 
have contended, has been practically adopted in the recent tariff laws. 
In asking for their discharge the committee desire to express their 
thanks and appreciation for the cordial support given to the work of the 
committee by the officers and members of the club, as they have co¬ 
operated from time to time toward accomplishing the object for which 
the committees were appointed. Fredk. W. Kelsey, Chairman. 
CANADIAN SCALE CONVENTION. 
A despatch to the New York Sun from Ottawa, dated 
November 20th, says : 
The horticulturist who was commissioned by the Government of 
Ontario to inquire into the sources whence the San Jose scale has been 
introduced into the fruit orchards of Ontario, reports that the pest 
came from stock imported from California. Fruit growers of Ontario 
are seriously alarmed at the spread of the pest, which will necessitate 
the destruction of thousands of dollars’ worth 6f fruit trees, and it has 
been decided to call a general convention early in December. 
At this meeting two propositions will be passed, one calling upon 
the Dominion Government to prohibit the importation of all nursery 
stock from California, and the other, that the government be asked to 
appoint competent inspectors to examine all such stock imported from 
other sections of the United States before it is admitted into Canada. 
The Messrs. Veitch & Son, Chelsea, England, have produced 
new gooseberries, Langley Gage and Langley Beauty. The 
fruit of the former is described as more than one inch in long 
diameter, oblong, yellow, slightly hairy, and with a swee 
flavor, agreeably mixed with a suspicion of acid. 
