The Yakima herald. [volume] (North Yakima, W.T. [Wash.]) 1889-1914, 1906-07-04
LIGHT ON SUBJECT
OF PEAR BLIGHT
THE sUOOU1H VARIETY IMMUNE
Eminent Authority Agrees with Local
HorticuIturists That Destroying
Tree IL Only Remedy.

ored to find out as much as l could
concerning the pear, as 1 wanted to set
| some. From what was said at the
| horticultural meeting here last win
/ ter l was nearly discouraged. 1t was
! said that the pears were all dead in
| the willamette valley and also in the
Walla Walla valley, and that the
deadly blight" had appeared in this
| valley, at least the inspector had found
| some on trees shipped in. 1t was also
said that there was no remedy found
for It. This nearly scared me out. Then
I thought that my brother, I. J. Bur-
rill, LII. y. of the University of Illinois,
was the first man to discover what the
| "blight" is, and / said | will write to
him.
| In conversation with a gentleman
living near me he said that he had
| been told that the Sudduth pear was
| immune to the disease / wrote to my
| brother concerning this Sudduth pear
and also the Comese, and received the
| following letter:
Urbana, Ill, June 49, 1906. My Dear
Brother Replying to yours of the
| 18th instant, l will say that 1 have
watched pretty closely the paintings
that have been made of Sudduth pear
| in this vicinity and I have examined
hundreds of trees. / have found blight
, only in a few instances and then never
to a serious extent. Some forty or
fifty inoculations three or four years
ago failed to develop. l think, there
fore, the tree may be considered pretty
n r1v 10 in c
possible that under some conditions
the disease would appear
The original tree stands near Spring
field, ILL.,, on a farm long owned by the
Sudduth family. 1t is an immense
tree and has borne as much as $50
bushels of pears for one crop. 1t is
now, however, considerably decayed
and will never bear such an immense
load again. The fruit is only medium
in quality, but is a great deal better
than the KeIffer. 1t has nothing of
the Comese blood in it and so none of
the excessive grittiness of the sand
pear. In very many instances it is
seedless and it never has much of
core I have seen trees ten or eleven
years old bearing heavy crops, but the
variety does not seem to be an early
fruiter. The tree is quite distinct in
appearance among pears. 1 do not
know the other you mention.
I hope you will not gain an ac-
quaintance with the blight. When a
tree is attacked on certain twigs or
limbs the leaves turn black and adhere
tenaciously. that is. they have no ten
dency to fall. On examination it will
I. a,,lr q
limb is also discolored, and sometimes
there may be seen by close looking
drops of viscid fluid issuing from GER
tain places of the affected bark. This
emulation is too thick to run down the
limb unless aided by outside moisture,
and 1t soon dries into a varnish-like
consistency. At first it is white, but
becomes yellowish on exposure and
finally brown. This exuding matter
is made up entirely of bacteria, thou
sands Of them being in minute
amount of 1t as big as a pins point.
Undoubtedly it is distributed by in
sects and by them inoculated into
fresh twigs. 1t is also carried by bees
from flower to flower and the nectar
of the flower proves to be a good cul-
ture fluid, where the bacteria multi
ply within a few days very consider
ably Sometimes it is clearly seen that
the attack comes mostly through the
flowers.
The only thing to do to stop it's raw
ages is promptly cut off the affected
parts and surely cut low enough to
get below the disease. If this Is
promptly and efficiently done trees
can be saved that would otherwise
surely perish.
I am interested in what you say
about alfalfa. 1t Is coming to be
great forage crop and it's cultivation
is spreading very widely over the
country. Here on the University farm
1t would not succeed well until the soil
was inoculated with the proper root
tubercle bacteria, but we are getting
good crops now. On rich alluvial
lands it grows well whether inocu-
lated or not.
We have just closed a very success
full year of the university. graduating
about 600 people. I send you under
another cover a program of exercises
Very truly yours,
T. J. BURRILL
that the blight is no confined to the
pear. but is found in the apple also. 1t
is not likely to do harm in the apple,
but lives and multiplies and spreads
from there to the pear, so that or
chardists must be on the lookout for
1t in the apple and cut and burn 1t
out from there.
Referring to the Comese pear I can
say but little. My brother says he does
not know 1t at ALL 1t has been raised
with great success in southern Ore
gon and has been shipped from there
to New York and sold at very high
figure. The trees seem to bear early
and well and the trees there, as is the
case with all their pears, is free from
the blight Notwithstanding all this.
my main planting shall be of the Bart
let. They bear very young and very
prolifcally. and sell well in the
market. 1t would please me very much
to hear from someone else that knows
something about the pear and the
blight.
= S. L. BURRILL
Mob Hill, North Yakima, Wash.