PEAR BLIGHT IN ILLINOIS. 



A truer thing never was said than by yourself, Mr. Editor, in this very article; that 

 "farming is either an intelligent occupation, and demands education, or it is not, and 

 demands only brute force." Our legislators hold to the latter; and so long as they prac- 

 tice on that opinion, we may knock at their doors till doomsday, with our petitions, before 

 we can get a successful hearing. But let a body of men go at the work with the same en- 

 ergy and determination of purpose, and the same appliances that others do, when they 

 want to get a legislative enactment for private benefit, and the work would be accomplish- 

 ed " in a jifley." Jeffreys. 



NOTES ON PEAR BLIGHT IN ILLINOIS, 



BY PROFESSOR TURNER, JACKSONVILLE, ILL. 



Thk principal horticultural event worthy of notice last season, in these parts, was the 

 great and unparalleled blight and failure of all sorts of fruit. 



The spring frosts killed the plums, peaches, and apples, and as there was no food for the 

 Curculio and kindred vermin last season, we may expect that a great variety of specific 

 preventives for their ravages, will succeed to perfection — for an enemy already starved and 

 annihilated is often easily conquered. 



"VVe will therefore leave these specifics and all further experiments, and eat our plums 

 till the " Grand Turk" has time to multiply or emigrate for another crusade upon us — 

 and also learn that Providence is wise — ^and that frosts that kill all thefruit, are some- 

 times most excellent and necessary things; worth more for the " Turk" than worlds of 

 pigs, chickens, sulphur, salt, &c. &c. Both the blight and grape rot are different matters, 

 from which as yet we see ne relief. 



The season till September was remarkably wet, and all the grapes were smitten with 

 the rot sometime in July — it was an entire destruction, and no remedy seemed to do the 

 least good — while the true philosophy of the matter seems to be more of a m3'stery than 

 ever. No position or tr&ining, or pruning, or picking, or artificial soil, or subsoil, or 

 drainage, seemed to be of the least avail — while some facts seem strongly to indicate that 

 the real cause must be either fungus or animalculse. 



I shall, this spring, enter upon a new course of experiments as regards the grape rot, 

 by planting vines in Vjrick and cemented vine pits or vats, filled with different artificial soils 

 and subsoils, of which in due time you shall hear. My Catawba vine was the only one 

 that escaped a total rotting and loss of fruit for two past years. 



As to the pear and apple and quince blight, it swept every thing last season in these 

 parts. It entirely destroyed every privet bush and hedge on my grounds, and attacked 

 the pears and quinces with unparalleled vehemence. The apple trees seem to have an innate 

 power of re.sistance, (or a vix medicatrix,) which the pep,rs, quinces, and privets have not. 



I devoted much time to the phenomena, and examined carefully all the pear trees in 

 town, and I think the following facts quite well established with us: 



I. There are some six forms of blight, not one alone, if we may believe what appears 

 to be well authenticated by credible witnesses, and they all appeared among us the last 

 season : 



1. There is an insect which eats into the terminal bud, and down the pith to a conside- 

 distance, and causes a terminal blight in the ap])le tree. This is not serious, a 

 found on no other tree here. 



