n I made on Mr. Hicks' place
last fall. I found there a large hazel which was probably twenty-five
feet high and bearing a fair crop of nuts. Mr. Hicks told me that he had
brought that tree from Germany many years ago--I think it was over
twenty years ago--and that that was the only one left out of a lot. Now
if other European hazels had been killed there with the blight and this
one was left there was apparently a blight-proof hazel in that lot.
I have seen a good many hazel bushes affected with blight, but I have
not seen any since I went with Doctor Deming up to Bethel. I have seen
no blight since then though I have looked for it whenever I have been
where there were European hazels. I examined that tree in Mr. Hicks'
nursery very carefully and found there was no evidence of blight. I feel
as the other speakers do who have expressed themselves, that we have
little to fear from the hazel blight; that if it does appear in the
nurseries we can control it by cutting out the blighted portions.
MR. PIERCE: In northern Utah I have a number of bushes of the foreign
and the American hazel and they are ten years old. So far I have not
seen any evidence of blight.
I would like to ask a question. What form does this blight take, and is
it deadly? In other words, will it kill the bush? Is it good to cut out
the affected parts?
DOCTOR MORRIS: You find a depression of the bark over a small area,
gradually increasing, and around the part that is depressed you will
find a little swelling of the healthy part that is trying to grow over
the blight area. This also contains the roots, if you can call them
that, of the blight. You can recognize it everywhere on the hazel by the
distinctly depressed area of bark, which should be cut out before it
gets to be the size of a quarter.
In other cases the blight will encircle a small branch and cause a
swelling instead of depression that looks very much like the swollen
area around the depressed bark. There may be depression in the branch
parts but the swelling blocks that so you can see only the swelling.
These branches may be very easily removed, with as much ease as a boy
would steal the nuts, so there is nothing to be feared on that score. If
the blight is left uncared for it will kill some of the plants and it
will not kill others. It will injure some also without killing them, so
that we have to consider the question of what we call relative immunity.
In the case quoted by Mr. Bix
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