Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1880 [PAGE 157]

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ties of untried fruits will succeed so well as a few chosen kinds; yet people forget this fact when comparing this experimental orchard with others. The land is, in many places, too wet for apples, and the trees suffer accordingly. Some are plainly injured by the exposure of their roots in plowing. The orchard can never become a profitable one in the ordinary sense; yet the great value of even one variety of fruit, better for the locality than any usually planted, should such a one be found, warrants the continuance of the trial. But the trees are now so large tb»at a limited number of cattle and hogs pasturing among them would scarcely do any damage. There are evergreens which might be molested, and the planting of young trees to Ull up spaces would be prevented, but, on the whole, it is here recommended that a fence be put across the east side, and the land prepared for pasturage. A small orchard of well selected kinds of fruit, for illustration and profit, would be a very desirable addition to the horticultural equipments. This might be started on the dry ground south of the veterinary building, now used as a nursery for young trees. The propagation of nursery stock would not be interfered with for years in the same area, and some kinds of small fruits and cultivated crops might be grown among the trees continually. Trees will thrive upon this land, and can be kept in good order. There is one objection to such a plantation of fruit trees, viz: the liability of the fruit to be stolen, which is increased as the site is nearer and more accessible from town. But better watch cau be kept in the locality named than elsewhere on the farm, unless it be near the farmer's house. Two acres for apples would be quite sufficient, allowing about eighty trees which should be of not more than eight kinds. The trees are now on hand or can be procured by exchange, so that the first cost of the plantation would not be noticeable. In such an orchard, various experiments as to cullure, etc., could be carried out which are impracticable in the present one. It would, if properly treated, furnish good fruit, and help to remove the unjust odium attached by unthinking persons to the experimental orchard now beginning to bear.

THE NUESEEY.

During the year, several additions have been made to the stock of young trees in the nursery. Several thousand apple trees have been started from grafts made by students last winter as a part of their class work. Other seedlings were collected in the forests, and others still obtained from seed. The sales made last spring were not large, nor the prices high. Complaint was made by the nurserymen in the vicinity that these sales interfered with their proper business, but upon inquiry it was ascertained that agents from foreign nurseries had sold considerable stock of the same kind at lower prices. It is probable that the average price asked by these home nurserymen is fully as low as that received for plants at the University grounds, i h e first question which visitors often ask is, "Do youmake these things pay?" And it is considered creditable to make the sales cover the cost; yet, those who complain say there should be no sales at all. Upon the whole, it appears to me advisable to continue such work as is required for illustration, and to sell the products for whatever the market rates may be.

INVESTIGATIONS.

At all times during the year, vacations as well as during term time, whenever opportunity presented, investigations of problems in vegetable physiology and pathology have been prosecuted. Most of these are intricate and require much time and very thorough and close study. Some of these have reached conclusion or very nearly so. Others are still held for further experiment and demonstration. I append the accounts of three diseases of cultivated plants, the causes and cures of which have been very little or not at all understood.

THE CUEL OF THE PEACH LEAF.

Soon after the leaves of Peach trees burst from the buds in spring time, a swollen, blistered appearance is presented, and as they grow the shape becomes variously distorted, the texture is changed, becoming rigid and brittle. Not long afterward these affected leaves decay, wither and fall off. In the latter part of the year healthy leaves are produced and the tree continues to thrive. The disease is not fatal but does considerable injury, reducing growth, flavor of the fruit, etc., besides causing a very undesirable appearance. The cause is a parasitic fungus heretofore only known upon the leaves as Ascomyces deformans, and referred to as an anomally because the fruit only had been found. The new contribution I have to make is that mycelium (vegetative threads), not only penetrated through and through the leaf, but also through the tissues of the young bark, and that in the latter case it is perennial, giving origin, each spring, to a crop of spores. The young leaves, while still in the buds, are infested with the fungus, and the bark of the young twig, as soon as it is formed, is likewise preyed upon. As these parts expand the poisonous mycelium is carried along, and when the leaves are fully expanded the fungus fruit is produced on their surfaces as a thin, white stratum, more or less mealy in appearance. Under the microscope this white substance is found to be composed of oblong transparent sacks (sporangia) filled with spores. After the annual production of this crop of spores, the perennial mycelium may be found at any time during the year in the bark of the young twigs* but it seems to be dormant, so that the production of healthy leaves later in the season is not interfered with. The affected twigs can be easily distinguished by the diseased appearance of the bark, and can thus be pruned away. This is the proposed remedy. It is still possible that the disease may t e disseminated by the spores from orchard to orchard, but the slow spreading of the parasite warrants the belief that little trouble can come from this source. A careful selection and cutting away of the affected limbs of last year's growth will reduce if not entirely eradicate the parasite.