Connecticut western news., 1909-10-21
DISEASES OF OUR
 CULTIVATED FRUITS
AND CONSEQUENT YEARLY LOSS
Accumulation of Weeds, Diseases and Insects on Farm Comes From too Long Continued Culture of Same Crops on Same Land.
FRUIT DISEASES

Crops on Same Land.
 FRUIT DISEASES
 i The various diseases of our cultivated fruits cause great loss nearly every year, not only to growers of the fruits. but also to the handlers and users.
 PoME FRUITS Over S5, 100000 worth of Bartlett pear orchards have been des- | troyed in California in the last five years by bacterial disease, pear-blight This disease has made it very difficult to grow the Bartlett and similar fine vari- cities of pears which are sensitive to the malady i'll question ill any region where the disease has gained good foothold. i The culture of these finer varieties has been rendered extremely hazardous ill the East.
 The same disease also attacks the apple and Ill some seasons causes great loss by destroying the flowers and pre- venting the setting of the fruit, and often by attacking the trunk of the tree and girdGng it. By the cutting out of the ''hold-over" blight, supplemented by conservative methods of orcharding and l the selection of resistant varieties, the blight can be at least partially con i trolled.
 The bitter-rot of the apple is another very destructive disease in the principal apple sections. The loss some years has 1 been estimated to be over $I0,O00, ,000 Until recently the disease could not be controlled, but now the Department ex- perts have worked out all efficient and 1 practical treatment.
 Large losses of apples and pears also result from the attacks of black-rot or canker, leaf-spot, black-spot canker, fruit blotch, powdery mildew, sclb, and large number of similar diseases well known to fruit growers. Mos5 of these diseases can be controlled by proper spraying. This costs on the average about 10 cents per tree, but the majority of farmers and fruit growers still trust to luck, and as a consequence lose a large part of their fruit
 STONE FRUITs.-The diseases of ssone fruits, especially of the peach and the plum, cause great loss annually. The gumming disease, or California reach twig- blight, has for several years des- troyed a large percentage of the crop iH California orchards. Recently the De- partment has demonstrated that by | q the disease can be prevented. The re commended treatment has been applied, and the savings have already amounted to more than million dollars year.
 The loss from peach leaf-curl, which in some seasons is almost complete, can be prevented by spraying the trees with Bordeaux mixture of lime-sulphur solu- tion just before the buds begin to swell. This recommendation has been applied in many orchards and has resulted in a great saving.
 The most destructive and serious of the stone-fruit diseases, however, are the yellows, rosette. and Ittle-peach. These diseases, the causes of which are still unknown, have often distroyed en- tire orchards and each year still destroy millions of trees. They spread rapidly unless the diseased trees are immediately removed
 The Monilia or brown rot is one of the most destructive of the fruits rots. In wet years it often destroys from 15 to 90 per cent of the peach crop in exten- siye regions, principally east of the Mis- sissippi River. The disease is especially destructive to peaches, Japanese plums, and sweet cherries. The average annual loss will not fall below 9 to 50 per cent ill the southern districts and 15 to % per cent in the northern. Hitherto there has been no method of preventing this loss. The copper sprays have been found to injure peach foliage to such an extent that they can not be used on trees in active growth. Recently De- partment expert has discovered that the disease may be controlled to a consider able extent by spraying the fruit with selfboiled lime sulphur solution. The solution thus made is found to differ in its effect upon the peach from the solu- tions made by the ordinary methods, be- ing almost entirely noninjurious
 SMALL FRUITs-The blackberry and raspberry suffer especially from crown gall, leaf-spot, and rust; the cranberry from scald and rot; entrants from the cane blight leaf-spot, and powdery mil dew; grapes from black-rot, dOwny mil dew, and crown-gau. These diseases
 ftcn distroy from 10 10 50 per cent of t..,, IT, i-, m. .t- lOc,-1'ti = The most