atural barrier, you see that
it is going to be relatively easy, so far as the State of New York is
concerned, to put some sort of an artificial barrier across the little
neck there. This all depends on what can be done in Pennsylvania. This
cross-hatching of red along the Delaware River represents an area in
which the infection is only partial, and the few dots of red shown about
Binghamton represent localities in which the blight has now been
exterminated. The diseased trees have been taken out, stumps killed, and
bark burned. We are in hopes the disease will not reappear there. I
don't believe things have been definitely settled at Albany in the
Department of Agriculture, where the control work naturally lies, but
Commissioner Pearson is very anxious that something be done to try to
control or prevent the further spread of the disease in our state. Plans
are being made so that a large number of men will be located in this
territory next summer, making very careful inspection, removing the
occasional diseased trees, killing stumps, and burning bark; and a
forester will be connected with the work, for the purpose of advising
with regard to the use of the diseased timber. I might call attention to
the fact that our state agricultural law, as it now reads, empowers our
Commissioner of Agriculture to quarantine against this or any other
dangerous fungous disease,--a very broad step from what it was before
that time, when the only fungous disease he had any power to act against
was the black knot of plums.

Mr. Reed: From the chart, it appears that the disease is more common in
the vicinity of streams and bodies of water.

Professor Reddick: That is an observation that has often been recorded.

Mr. Reed: How is it elsewhere than in New York?

Professor Collins? The question has been asked more often than
otherwise, why do we find the disease on the tops of hills away from the
water? I think there isn't a sufficient amount of evidence or
observation on that point to say whether it is more common near or away
from bodies of water.

I will call your attention to one experiment that can be performed by
anybody with the microscope. Take a piece of one of those spore horns or
threads, put it in a drop of water on a microscope slide. Inside of two
minutes, it will disappear entirely. It is dissipated in the water, and
the spores are so small you cannot see them with the naked eye. If you
let the water dry on the slide, then p