144 RKeporr or THE DeparrMENT OF BoTraNy OF TUS 
details of the case it became plain that the trouble was due to 
the trees having been thawed out too suddenly. 
The trees were of many different varieties, and yet all were 
equally affected. Had it been due to fire blight or any other 
parasitic diseases, some varieties would have been injured more 
than others and some individuals more than others. On the 
disease hypothesis it is also impossible to account for the uni- 
formity of height at which the trees were affected. When the 
trees were placed in the cellar in the autumn they were all right, 
and an examination of some trees in the same blocks which had 
remained over winter in the field showed that none of them had 
blackened branches. Also, some of the same lot of trees which 
had been stored in another cellar were free from the trouble. 
For many years it has been the practice,of the owner of the 
trees to keep the temperature of the cellar as nearly as possible 
at 32° F., and whenever the temperature tends to fall below 
32° an open wood fire is built on the floor of the cellar. In the 
present case, however, no fire was built during the winter. 
Hence, early in the winter the sand about the roots of the trees. 
froze to a depth of perhaps three inches and remained frozen 
until February. On February 25, 1200 of the trees were dug 
out of the frozen sand and packed for shipment. No complaint 
was received concerning the condition of these trees, so it may 
be assumed that they were not affected with the branch black- 
ening either before or after removal from the cellar. At this 
time all trees in the cellar appeared to be all right. 
So much difficulty was experienced in removing the trees 
from the frozen sand that it was decided to build a little fire | 
in the cellar and thaw the sand. The fire was built February 27 
in one corner of the cellar where the 1200 trees had been removed 
two days earlier. A few days later the trees were observed to be 
in the unhealthy condition above described. Our own observa- 
tions were made March 15. The fire had not been suspected as 
being the cause of the trouble because it had long been the cus- 
tom to build fires in cold weather. The man who built the fire 
admitted that it had been made a little larger than usual in order 
