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Show White Pine Blister Is Quite Injurious Currant and Gooseberry Bushes Hosts of Disease. (Prepared by the United Scales Department of Aricullure.) White pine was once our most im-pnrtant im-pnrtant timber crop, holding top place in lumber production from 1620 to ISICi. It is now down to fifth place, aud unless owners of this timber take precautions the ravages of the white pine blister rust will drag it down to a position of still less importance. This disease Is now attacking white pines in all the important regions where it grows in this country in New England, Eng-land, the Lake states and In the Pacific Pa-cific Northwest. There are eight native na-tive white pines in the United States, including the eastern white pine, western west-ern white pine, sugar pine, limber pine, whitebark pine, Mexican white pine, fox-tail pine, and the bristle-cone bristle-cone pine. The Himalayan white pine and the stone or cembrian pine have been introduced from Europe and are to be found to some extent in parks and cemeteries. All of these pines, the native and introduced varieties, vari-eties, are susceptible to the blister rust. " I Since currant and gooseberry bushes are the intermediate hosts of this disease of the white pine, the way to protect the pines is to destroy all of the bushes in the pine timber or near it. This is the only practical method. The spores of the rust cannot can-not be transferred directly from one pine tree to another and produce the disease. They must first find a live gooseberry or currant leaf to grow on, ; and the spores formed there will infect in-fect the pines. The United States De- partment of Agriculture is carrying on campaigns for the uprooting of the currant and gooseberry bushes in white pine regions. Last year the cost of this work averaged 18 cents an acre, but the department says that it would pay even if the cost should mount up to $2 an acre. j j |