The Weekly Kansas chief. [volume] (Troy, Kan.) 1872-1918, 1881-07-28
for the farmer.
BLIGHT OF THE APPLE TREE.

About thirty. five years ago northern Illinois
was visited with period OF apple tree 1LISh.'
which lasted about three years he hilsnt NJ
tefiy destroyed Que variety-thc Bsopus Spitzei-
burr, (which before that time, had done remark
ably well l--scriously iniuring several other va
rieiics and appeared to iniure nearly al kihus
somewhat. Then for about twenty-five years
this annie blight almost entirely Disappeared.
Twelve or fauFiecn years ago we began 10 near
of great destruction of apple, and espeelaiiy
Siberian crab. trees in Minnesota. This biigh
sa-ead soathWard. and showed its greatest WITH
lence IA northern Illinois three years ago, TINS
summer. Now il appears to be working lts great-
est des ruction in the latitude Of southern !ndl-
ana and Ohio. In northern Illinois, now, u is
not near so bad this year as last-in TACT mas
well nigh disappea7ed-and was not so bad ias'
year the year before IL was much more IN
iufious TO some varieties of apples than others.
II almost anihilated the Domino and Rawles Je-
net Its attack is almost similar TO the we'll
known .'fire blight" of the pear. On some varle-
ties Of apples, it only killed the twgs OF the cur
rent wears growth, ON others, IL killed iaTse
branches, while Oh Others it appeared 10
peryade the whole tree. Its action on the siber-
ian Crabs was exactly Ike the blight on the
pear. A fow of the crabs escaped entirely, nota-
bly, the Hyslop and Orange
Some persons have theory that tins blight
was the result of the extreme cold winter OF lsI3-
4 but we cannot accept this theory, though u
has one point in It's favor, to wit: Some OF the
varieties that were the most severely injured by
that winter, suffered greatly from the bhght'
But there was no cold winter preceding the per-
iod of blight years ago.
We look upon this blight as one Of the Periodl-
cal epidemics caused by parasitic life, or dis
ease If Won wish to term il, that all life ap-
,ears to be more or less subject to, the same as
mankind is TO Asiatic cholera, yellow fever,
munps scarlet fever etc, and belonging to the
same uncomfortable class, 50 far as our present
knowledge of medicine goes. But we write fhis
90 call attention TO the seeming PeriodicIty Of
thcsc diseases. In the West, we have just passed
through Tor the indications point that way
eight 10 ten years of very prevalent pear blight.
We NAV now have quite period of very little
pear blight. as we did from 1850 TO 1870. We
have periods Of cherry leaf blight; then it dsap-
pears So We have of the 'curF of the peach
leaf, fungus on tho Young plum, black knot on
the plum .'red rust of the blackberry, etc.
They all appear 90 come and Goperiodically. We
can suggest no cure remedy for the blight of
the apple tree, any more than we can for the
blight of the pear tree. 1t is undoubtedly cans
ed hy Edoicri0, and Prof. BurTill says they are
caused by exactly the same bacteria. This may
Ice So, but thera are some points that tend strong
IL to show that they are not the same. In our
present state of know ledge we are forced place
apple blight along side of pear blight. uncOn-
tTollable and incurable. Nothing but excelsior
of the diseased parts will check il. But we
sholld continually experiment. We may find
some simple remedy, easily applied, that may
ward off its attacks. but we must not be too san
guine of Success for It is fact that the more We
find out about these blghts the more difficult
prevention appears To be. The only pointer to-
wards prevention that now see is to keep
the bark continually covered with something
through which the disease (bactaria) can not, or
will not penetrate, for il appears to spread by
contact or incubation Only.-I'rGirie Farmer.