332 REpoRT OF THE HORTICULTURIST OF THE 
XX XIII, fig. 2.) In fact the Nectrias have been associated with 
such injuries so long that in some instances the word canker has 
come to be regarded as a specific rather than a general term, but 
other species of fungi may cause a cankered condition of trees and 
plants. According to Hartig such wounds may be produced by 
the action of frost, when they are called frost cankers. In general, 
then, it may be said that any injury of trees, whereby a portion 
of the bark is destroyed and the wood laid bare may be classified 
under the general term, canker. 
That the term canker, as applied to plant diseases, is new to 
many of our fruit growers may be due to the fact that the Nectrias 
are of but little economic importance in the United States. 
THE NEW YORK APPLE-TREE CANKER.’ — HISTORY. 
Orchardists have been familiar with this diseased condition of 
the limbs of the apple tree for years. This is especially true 
with the Esopus Spitzenberg, where the injury to the limbs, com- 
monly thought to be due entirely to sun-scald, has been associated 
with the apparent running out of this favorite apple. Atten- 
tion was first called to the probability of this injury being caused 
by a plant disease by M. B. Waite, of the U. 8. Department 
of Agriculture, Washington, D. C., in an article? that was 
read at the meeting of the Western New York Horticultural 
Society in 1898 and which appeared a few days later in the Rural 
New Yorker.2 Mr. Waite suggested the fungus Schizophyllum 
commune Fr. as the probable cause of the disease. This article, 
1 The name of New York Apple-Tree Canker is proposed for this disease for 
the purpose of distinguishing the canker produced by the attacks of the fungus 
Spheropsis malorum, Pk. (see page 355) from cankers that are due to the 
action of other fungi, as the Pacific Coast Apple-Tree Canker and the Euro- 
pean Canker. 
2Waite. Proceedings Western N. Y. Hort. Soc., 1898, pp. 9, 10. <A brief 
article, included in the report of the committee on botany and plant diseases, 
notes prevalence of an apple-tree canker in orchards of Western New York. 
3 Waite. Rural New Yorker, Feb. 5, 1898, p. 82. 
