The Portland daily press., 1881-12-13
TIE PRESS.
Riiaht of Frlllt Trees.


Pref. J. L. Budd of the Iowa Agricultur-
al College, has long been close observer,
and his practical and scientific knowledge
entities his views to respectful attention.
Some of his conclusions on this subject are
here given. He says:
Trees blight least: l. In orchards on
light colored soils, in elevated airy posi-
tions. 2. On soils shaded the preceding
season by sufficient growth of second-crop
clover or of buckwheat. 3. In orchards
cultivated in the early part of the preceding
season, and shaded the latter part with
marsh hay or other rubbish, as practiced by
Or. Ward, Of New jersey. 4. In orchards
kept whitewashed on trunks and main
limbs the preceding season. 5. Where the
trunks and lower forks are shaded on the
south by walls, tight board fences, low
buildings, evergreens, or even boards SO
placed as to maintain lower temperature
of the tree during July and August.
G. Where orchards are exclusively planted
with varieties indigenous to countries with
very hot, dry summers, such as the inter-
continental steppes of northern Europe and
Asia.
Trees are most subject to blight: 1. On
dark colored soils exposed 10 the sun, in
sheltered positions. 2. In positions where
the reflected heat of tight board fences,
walls, wooden buildings, or where exposed
10 Dl1SlS Vi ucdtcQ diI pdScllls OfGI uiJ ~ dlu
or grass stubble, heated roads, etc.
3. Where the varieties are indigenous to
sections with relatively humid and cool
summers. This is specially noticed in crabs
from Siberia and pears doing best in
England and the humid portions of France
and Belgium. These general conclusions
point to excessive heat and aridity of air as
an exciting cause of blight, especially when
taken in connection with the fact that
r L. -.
and hotter summer air than is known in the
native ranges of our best varieties of the
apple and pear. In portions of India,
Australia, and South America, the south of
Europe apples and pears blight just as they
do here. | have neither the time nor the
inclination to speculate on the exact manner
in which an internal temperature of 9o de-
grees works injury to the maturing cell
structure of an English pear or a Siberian
crab, while 100 degrees may not injure an
orange or fig at the Cape of Good Hope.
Observation teaches that the damage
really occurs in July and August in the
newly formed cells of the liber. In cases of
extreme injury it may be apparent at once,
but as rule the injured structures does not
exhibit itself until the following June.
The material for extending growth passes
upward in sound structure, but when exten-
sion of growth is nearly complete aud the
injured cell structure of the liber, tue
blight appears in more or less fatal form,
depending ON the amount of damage
wrought by the unnatural heat of the
preceding August. To prevent misappre-
tensions l will repeat the idea in about the
words of Walter Hill, director of the botanic
hgardens at Brisbane, Australia. In the hot
dry air OF the interior, the pear of southern
Europe exhibited traces of ferment in the
cell structure of the hher, followed when the
tine came for the next woody deposit, by
blight on the new growth and patches of the
bark. He then secured the thick leaved
pears of India, which had shown no traces
of disease because of their capacity to endure
greater heat ieE.
Bequeral, the famous French physicist
gives the same idea. He reports fruit trees,
Indigenous to cool and moist climates dying
by coup de chdleltr (stroke of heat) at the
season when new wood deposit commenced,
where standing in positions where their in
ternal temperature might reach 95 degrees
Fahrenheit. Frenzy, the noted French chem
list. assumed that "stroke of heat" under
these circumstances, only meant that ''pec-
tose in vegetable tissues is accompanied by
a ferment, sometimes soluble and at others
lnsolube, which possesses the property of
transformating pectose and pectin into poetic
and metapectic, acid successfully" With
further Investigation, the botanical view that
this ferment is caused by a living organism
(Bacteria) will be much modified. In con-
nection with ferments in vegetable tissue
the living organism is found, and may prob
ably be classed as an associate. We also know
that by natural or artificial inoculation the
ferment with its accompaniment may be
communicated to sound tissue. Yet as
practical horticultursts we will accomplish
more by strict attention to the native haunts
of the varieties we plant, to selection of sites
and soils, and to surface treatment, with
view to modifying the heat of the lower beds
of air among our trees, than by speculating
on the exact way in which ferments with
their associate Bacteria, may be introduced
into plant tissue.