The Savannah morning news., 1902-05-12
Grass as a Preventive of Pear Blight.


Grass as a Preventive of Pear Blight.
In the Galveston News agricultural
department H. H Stringfellow urges
non-culture and grass in the orchard
as a preventive of pear blight.
LAS to the future, there is but one
remedy. If all growers would put
their orchards down to grass and NOV
several times during the growing sea-
son, leaving the clippings on the
ground and fertilize around young
trees where growth was too small, then
a slower. firmer and healthier growth
of new wood would result, that Will be
far less susceptible to blight. This
with the natural wearing out of the
diseo a. from the trees becoming &C
cEstomed to it, will, l believe, result
IN a few years in an almost total dis
appearance. Let a Galveston man,
whose system is comparatively free
from malaria, move to the interior, ana
it is a well known fact that in nine
cases out of ten he will be attacked
by malaria the first season. The sec
Ond year ne may have another, but
less severe attack, and perhaps not be
troubled again for years. His system
has become accustomed to malaria and
the bacteria ceases to inconvenience
him. Pear blight is strictly d bacterial
disease, and though my old orchard
was the first to be attacked and had
a severe case, we have Prof Waite s
testimony that it now shows little sign
of the disease. Now as to the cutting
out of the dead wood from blighted
trees-this is recommended by all the
authorities as absolutely essential, and
many thousands of dollars have been
thus wasted. While it will undoubt-
eddy greatly improve the appearance
of the trees and may be practiced for
this reason where people can afford it,
it is entirely useless as a means of pre-
venting a recurrence of the disease.
The disease is already in the sap, and
if the trees were cut off a the ground
would show itself in the new growth,
if the proper conditions for its devel-
opment were afforded. One of the main
conditions for such development is a
severe late frost, when the sap is NOV
ing. Now to prove that the dead wood
has no effect one way or the other,
l will cite the pear trees above al
luded to, in Eureka Springs. Two of
those trees had suffered severely from
blight several years before, and several
very large dead limbs were still stand
ing among the green and younger
growth. The owner told me that he
had neglected to cut it away the first
year, and as no second attack had fol-
lowed, he had let the limbs alone. Ac-
cording to the authorities blight should
certainly have appeared the second
year. Again, it IS well known all over
the country that some years this dis
ease is very bad and scarcely any sign
of it the next AS final proof of the
failure of the cutting out system, l
will instance my own orchard at Hitch
cock The blight first appeared there
in the spring of 1894, after a very Sc
we're late freeze. and the year follow
ing a crop of about 10000 bushels of
pears. Every tree in the orchard was
more or less affected, but none were
killed and a crop of 1900 bushels of
fruit was sold. In the fall, believing
it to be my duty and that it might
eXterminate the disease, 1 hired seven
men, and starting at one side we went
over the entire orchard with saws and
shears, cutting out every limb and sign
of blight, which were afterward burn
ed.