Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1886 [PAGE 282]

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276 progresses will become more so, for the weaker ones are much retarded by the influences of their more successful neighbors. The shade is not so dense as in many other cases. Weeds of numerous kinds still grow in considerable quantity under the trees. (Pinus Austriaca.) These trees, occupying one-fourth of an acre, were planted on a strip of land twenty-five rods long north and south, gently sloping to the north. The soil is good and the drainage sufficient for successful corn growing. The trees wrere set four feet apart each way. The first planting was made in the spring of 1871, the seedlings, nine to twelve inches high, being obtained from nursery beds. Nearly all died the first year. Eeplanted in 1872 with a large loss again, but finally nearly all the spaces were filled in 1873. Cultivation and management same as described for Scotch Pine. After gaining a hold upon the soil the young trees began to grow very thriftily. In September, 1875, the average height wTas two feet eight inches. One year subsequently the measurements proved to be four feet eight inches—a remarkable growth. Alternate rows were taken away in 1878, but no other thinning or pruning has been attempted. The lower limbs are dead on account of the density of the shade, but are so closely interwoven that they form a barrier to a passage among the trees. The trunks are mostly straight and erect, though somewhat swollen at the insertion of the whorls of branches. The average height is now twenty-seven feet five inches, and the average circumference of trunk is a little above twenty inches. These measurements exceed those for White Pine, but fall somewhat short of the ones given for Scotch Pine of the the same age. A fungus disease of the foliage mars the beauty of the plantation and reduces the growth. The leaves on the lower branches are worst affected, and this is the same when a tree stands in an open space by itself. Early in summer the one-yearold leaves begin to show little brown marks more or less numerous, often few, at any part of their length and upon any side. These spots, minute at first, slowly enlarge, and towards autumn a central, black, somewhat elevated papilla may be seen in each. By the end of this second season the leaves are mostly dead and usually fall. Sometimes the leaves of the first year are similarly destroyed, but this is not so common. They should remain on the tree green and healthful three years.

AUSTRIAN PINE,

Upon microscopic examination the mycelium or vegetative threads of the fungas is found in abundance, well distributed through the leaf tissues. The black points are fruiting bodies of the fungus, in which two kinds of spores are produced in succession, the last usu* ally maturing after the leaves have fallen from the branches and appear to be fit for distribution about the first of June. Undoubtedly the fresh leaves are affected when wetted with dew or rain, through the germination of these spores upon their surface and the penetration of the germinal tubes into the leaf tissues. No remedies are known. Upon isolated trees some experiments have been made by pulling off the diseased leaves and burning them, as well as all fallen ones. This procedure evidently checked the development of the disease and saved much of the foliage, at least for a