Graham guardian., 1903-09-04
ROOT DISEASES OF TREES.
Many Suggestions Of Value IN
Regard TO Fruit and Vegetable
Culture and Diseases.

II. NJ. ONIiuSACliVW, thN NN-NNA'
fruit grower, has in the late F0r1a
and Ranch, an interesting and in
structive paper covering practical
ly the whole field of diseases of the
roots of both fruits and vegetables.
He says;
Because tree root diseases were
the all. absorbing topic at the re-
cent Farmers Congress, and be-
cause | have had considerable ex-
perience with them for thirty-fve
years, please allow me space for
few observations that will throw
some additional light on this sub
iect, Some growers seem to think
these diseases are of recent origin,
but with the exception Of crown
gall, we were worried just us badly
thirty-iive years ago with all var
ieties of vegetable and tree root
knot, or "club root" as it was then
called, as we are now In 1870 l
received from beyond the Missis-
sippi river small shipment of
peach and plum trees whose roots
were about rs evenly knotted as
beads on string. l planted them
on the sandy soil of Galveston
Island, and in few years they
were dead, We had no nurseries
in Texas then, and knowing moth
ing about root-knot except that il
was very bad thing, patronized
Northern nmserymen for long
time and, never received u single
diseased tree, though now they
are also troubled with it, | also
set ont fig trees, orange trees and
oleander bushes as early as lS66
and found that the roots Of the old
fig and oleanders and many Of the
orange trees were completely COW
cred with knots, the very same
nemitode, anguillula or "club
root" as we call it, that was shown
at the Farmers Congress, but |
have never know il TO kill one OIL
those three trees. The question is
where did il come from! We can't
lay il on the unfortunate nursery
man, for there was not a single one
in Texas, though / had planted a
few thousand fig cuttings for sale
and had about LOCO young orange
seedlings a few inches high. And
right here / will say that those
fig cuttings though taken from u
tree whose roots were mass of
little knots when planted on new
fresh soil made perfectly clean
rooted trees. But at that time l
saw no crown gall nor did | ever
see case until about 1890 and
then on peach and plum trees OBJ
tanned from a sandy soil nursery
man east of the Mississippi river.
Not knowing then the infectious
character of that disease, the can
Ger of the vegetable kingdom, I
budded large number of peach
stocks obtained from Kansas from
a young orchard which | had |
planted the year before with those
trans Mississippi trees. Being
very busy, and failing to bud sew
eral thousand Ofthe Kansas stocks, |
| was astonished the next year on
to find that nearly every
one of the budded trees was affect
ed with crown gall, while not a
single case appeared on the unbud-
ded Kansas stocks. 1t is useless
for any one to say that il is impos-
sible to infect from bud because
the sap goes up in the wood
and down under the back, for
dozens of nurserymen know from
actual experience to tho contrary.
But whether the ordinary nemi-
tode or root-knots can be propa-
gated by budding,I am not pre-,
pared to say, but | do know that a
ig cutting from such diseased
tree if planted on new land will
not have the disease. However,
the more | think Of it and expert
ment, the more ] am convinced
that the condition Of the soil has
more than anything else 10 do
with the development Of all these
root diseases. New land with a
full supply of nitrogen, phospheric
icid. potash and humus will grow
4 healthy tree from seed every
lime. Exhaust the soluble potash,
-he first element to give out, aud
he sap of II tree grown on such
soil is in just the condition to in.
ute an attack. In order to prove
his, allow me to give my first ex-
)erience with vegetable root knot,
which is identical with that of
rees, and now known rs nemitode
)r anguillula. went into the
'ruit and truck business on Calves
on Island in 1866 on u five acre
ot in the suburbs ofthe city, being
no first and for some years the
,nly american trucker there.
My ground was new, being few
ncbes of loams>s, top aud fine,
peach sand below, e-7'p-Sv knows
low deep. / managed byG0SrE
with stabN manure, /
,one meal and the old time, pure
Peruvian guano, costing $50 ton,
o grow vegetables for time that
we're wonder! Bnt in a few
ears the droad~ "elub-root'', the