The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1915-12-02

' chardist or careful training of the help who may be engaged in it. Re member that thoroughness is essen tiaI for success. It is not necessary to determine in all cases whether the blight is alive or dead on the lower margin, although somewhat helpful as a guide in determining how low to go. In actual practice it is better to cut out all the dead limbs and all the blight anyhow, regardless of whether 1t is a dead case or not.
 The blight eradication should all ways proceed the pruning. Others prunining for shaping up the trees may be done, if preferred, before. leaving the trees, or may be postponed until some convenient time later, but of course, before the buds push in the spring.
 Apple Bankers Apple cankers form dead spots on the twigs and branches of apple trees and occasionally extend down on to the bodies. There are several differ ent types of apple cankers in various parts of the United States. Occasion ally two or more kinds may occur on. the same tree. They are caused by fungi growing comparatively slowly in the bark and killing it. They often enter in the 4twigs, fruit spurs, or blighted areas killed by pear blight, but may infect entirely independent  sears, pruning wounds, or other in juries furnish the point of entry, but some kinds of canlers infect directly into the bark.
 The blister canker, common in the MiddeI West, is particularly severe after winter killing or after the trees are weakened by extended droughts. The particular kind of species of ap- ply canker may be determined by the grower by sending a sample. pre- ferably the whole area of small can ker or a section of the limb showing the margin, to the Department of Az riculture or the nearest State experi- ment station. It is not absolutely ne cessary in most cases to identify the species, since the treatment, as far as worked out, is essentially the same.
 The principal method of controlling apple cankers is identical with pear blight, as described above. Where the canker is located on g. branch or limb which can readily be spared, and es- pecially if it reaches half or nearly half way around the limb. it is best to saw the limb off, cutting S inches to foot below the lowest evidence of disease, then disinfect and paint or apply the coaI-tar creosote-o1 wound paint. Cankers located on a large branch which can not readily be spar ed or the body of the tree may be eradicated and trimmed out exactly as
  using the same methods and preferab- ly the coaI-tar creosote-oil wound treatment immediately on finishing the scar.
 Cankers do not require the prompt reinspection and retrinming as in vir- u1ent pear blight cases, but it is a good practice to look them over the following spring and again in the fall, and reWork them or saw 4 off the branch if an occasional failure has re- suited. Some cankers behave rather differently from pear blight In that they check up during the growing period of spring and summer and the tree attempts to heal them over then Fin the fall and winter the canlker spreads again., killing the margin of repeated several times as. the canker enlarges. Such old cases are rather mean to work on and usually, though not always, demand the removal of the branch.
 r, In very bad outbreaks of apple can ker, fall spraying with rather thick Bordeaux mixture. at least as strong las 5-5-50, is advisable. This treat ment is not usually necessary in most apple districts of the United States. but if the grower is having a real fight against apple cankers, the fall eradication should be made rat1ler promptly as soon as the leaves are off. and the whole orchard should be sprayed with this mixture. This pro tects the tree against most of the re- infections in the bark and probably kills the spores on the surface of the wood and possibly minor or tneipient cankers.