The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1910-11-08
EXTINCTION OF THE
 CHESTNUT THREATENED
Destructive Work Being Done
 by Fungus

was discovered that chestnut trees around New York were dying from fungus trouble. Now New York wonders if this is her last season of roasted chestnuts. At the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station in New Haven, within a few days, a piece of chestnut bark with this dis ease upon it was received from near Hartford to be verified. It was the disease. In the botanist's report, 1908, of the experiment station, speaking of the disease around New Haven, he says: Tn the vicinity of New Haven the writer has found only few spec imens, with no damage whatever ' This fall of 1910 finds the city of New Haven with so many dead elms and chestnuts, to cut down that according money to cut the trees down fast enough. In East Rock Park, there are 1900 dead trees. mostly chestnut trees, while several hundred have been cut down.
 On Long Island, the disease first ravaged. the chestnut to an alarming extent. Some 16,0oo chestnuts in For est Grove Park, Brooklyn, died.
 "All the chestnut trees in the Bronx have either been killed or serious ly injured by this trouble" according to pr. W. A. Murrill, assistant direc- tor of the New York Botanical Park in the Bronx. who first called atten- tion to this disease. At Prospect Park. Brooklyn, 1,400 trees were re- moved practically all of that species but six. In fact the trouble has made a clean sweep of the chestnut trees in New York and Brooklyn Parks. The total damage has been estimated in the Eastern United States at at least s10,0b0,0Oo. Up the Hud- son River, the trees began to die, the blight passeing through John ID. Rockefeller's acres in the Pocantico Hills. The range of this blight is now given as from Virginia to Mas sachusetts.
 Dr. MurriI1 and MT. Metcalf of the United States department believe that the trouble is due entirely to the fungus dfaporthe parasitica, which de- stroys the inner bark of the tree. The tree dies because the bark and cam blum layer are destroyed. but the fungus does not go into the wood very deeply, which is the reason that large trees thus killed can be sold for luTn- Der if marketed at once. Big trees die from the tops down.
 This cancer as 1t is popularly called, shows itself in the bark in cankerous spots. It has orange or chestnut brown pustules. At first these pus- jules or pimple-like spots are light orange brown, but by winter are dark chestnut brown. The average person can find the fungus easier when 1t Is on younger trees, with smooth bark, linn the late fall and winter, the fr1iting stage of the fungus shows on these as small reddish or chestnut brown cushions ttickly breaking through the bark.s Such spots usually start from a winter-killed twig or other injury.
 Tn the nature students walks this rs-,+o I,o eI,1 H. this disease and report 1t at once. Not that anything can be done. Experts tell the inquirer these depressing facts.
 The disease is increasing and spreading. There is not much hope of saving the forests at this rate of progress made by the fungus.
 The native American chestnut may be wiped out before this trouble has run it's course.
 Spraying does not do any good.
 Cutting out the fungus does not do any good.
 The chestnut it is estimated. makes up one half of the tfmber:of the state: The loss to the state would be great if the present woods should all be in- fected with this disease. Grown trees can be cut and marketed. One eff feet of the chestnut cancer has been to reduce temporarily the price of
 
 infected places, to fill the market with cord-wood to such an extent that it cannot be sold. Of course, in time, chestnut lumber at this rate, will be most expensive and perhaps Ameri- can chestnut furniture may be more valuable than old mahogany, inciden- tally, the price of the nuts has been high this year. Thes price has scarce ly dropped from its first price. While trees ready to be cut can be marketed, young sprout growths af- fected are spoiled for future growth. Connecticut's chestnut woods comes, in the sprout lands of young chest nut.
 An odd thing about this fungus is that in Europe it is not called dan- gerous at all. It exists but does not do any great damage. It is similar to an old fungus on the oak, said Bo- tanist Clinton of the Experimental Station of New Haven, in conversa- ton, and may be an old fungus and nothing new after all. As there are 6O.000 species of fungi already des- cribed, it would not be so strange a thing, if one fungus got called By several different names. Then, a req son which may account for the rapid growth and spread of the fungus as we know it, is that sometimes a fun- gus for years practically harmless, de- veloping on a new host" that is a new kind of tree, may start into as- l tonishing virility and do much dam | age. It may be that the chestnut fun gus while harmless on some trees, here in America having gotten on to 1 the native trees and found congenia1 soil, developed this remarkable fertil- | ity.
 Botanist Clinton, however, still diff | fers somewhat from the views of Dr. MurriIl and MT. Metclaf, in that he | thinks that some of this trouble is due to weather conditions. Since 1902, there have been unusually hard weather conditions for trees. The | winter of 1903-04 was very severe and | it was followed by the death of many | different kinds of trees within the next two or three years. Since then.
 seasons of great drought have follow l ed. unusual for these regions. "Scien- | tific men," said MT. Clinton, want | an insect or fungus to explain every thing that happens to a tree, instead of a physiological reason. Now there
 are, must be, physiological reasons | why trees die. Perhaps, this is one of them. Tn this case, the blight may | be at its worst, and gradually pass
 on. For. instance, the white pine blight that was so much in the papers
 a year or two ago. The white pines