FIREBLIGHT SCOURGE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21131, 14 March 1932, Page 12

FIREBLIGHT SCOURGE.

SPREADING IN CANTERBURY. ' PEAR AND APPLE TREES. DEPARTMENT'S CAMPAIGN. Inspections of backyard and commercial orchards carried out in Christchurch by the Department of Agriculture have revealed that fircblight has been spreading rapidly in the present fruit season. The department i s continuing its intensive campaign for stamping out the disease, and at present has a staff of 17 men assigned to this work, in addition to honorary inspectors appointed from among tho orchardists themselves. The 17 men regularly employed have been engaged under the No. 5 unemployment relief scheme. As a result of an inspection, said an inspector, a large number of pear and apple trees had been found to bo affected by fircblight, but the department was also giving attention to 6lher orchard diseases such as codlin moth and black spot. The backyard orchards were found to bo full of disease, most of the trees having received no attention for years. Probably owing to the exceptionally dry season fircblight was spreading rapidly, and in one commercial orchard 50 pear trees were affected and had to be destroyed. Mr. Goodwin mentioned that some orchardists were trying to conceal the fact that they had fruit trees affected by fircblight. This was a mistake. Early notification was in the orchardists' own interests, a§ it enabled the department to prevent the spread of the disease. Fireblight had also been found in a numbor of hawthorn hedges, which were susceptiblo to practically all orchard diseases.