TEAK BLIGHT. 



Wbon £;nifled or budded on their own stocks, they require more room, and are usually 

 lon<;er coming into bearing. 



The cultivation of the tree has, however, its drawharks. It is not hardy ; or, if you 

 do not like the term, it is subject to be cut otf and dcstruyed by death at any time, 

 when seeming in full vigor of health and growth. On the cause, there has been much 

 speculation, without seeming to come to any satisfactory conclusion. 



Long experience, observation, and much reflection, have established in my own mind 

 the cause. I do not know that I can make this clear or satisfactory to you, and other 

 minds, but I may open a door to a new, or rather an unexplored field for thought and 

 reflection, both to the practical and the scientific investigator. Perhaps there is no 

 spot in this, or any other country, where a greater opportunity has been aflforded for 

 an observance of the diseases to which the l*ear tree is subject — especially that form 

 which we understand as Jire hliyht — than here. 



Scientific gentlemen, with some exceptions, have generally followed each other in 

 attributing it mainly to Insects, and some to an exhaustion, or absorjjtton of those 

 'particles from the soil which are essential to the health and life of the tree, and the 

 perfect development of its fruit, admitting, at the same time, the existence of other 

 extraordinary causes for its disease and death. 



"Without denying that insects are sometimes injurious to the Pear tree, even to its 

 destruction, I must be permitted to question the general correctness of Uie theory, and 

 also that of an exhausted soil. To my mind, facts do not warrant such conclusions, 

 as applicable to our region. To make out the latter theory, it should not be left to 

 rest on doubtful speculation, but it should be shown to harmonize with matters of 

 practical fact, as they continually occur. The ingenuous mind never should allow 

 itself to lose sight of these. 



Though, unquestionably, the working, or grafting on bad stocks, such as suckers, 

 and planting in had soil, will facilitate the destruction of the Pear tree — as the same 

 cause would any other — they are only local, and lay not at the root of the evil. To 

 suppose the adventitious existence of some substance in the soil, to remove difficulties 

 out of the way of a favorite theory, is not satisfactory. 



It has been advanced that the cracking of the White Doyenne is owing to an exhaus- 

 tion from the soil of those particles necessary to its perfect development ; that the tree 

 would resume its former habit of the production of perfect fruit, if these substances 

 were supplied to the roots. Among many reasons for dissenting from this position, 

 let me say, that for eight or ten years, I have hardly had a perfect fruit on trees of 

 this variety, many of which formerly bore fine fruit, until last summer, when, on all of 

 them, it was as fine as I ever saw it any where ; and this without any application 

 whatever to their roots. The trees are scattered over my grounds ; some in grass, the 

 sod of which has not been disturbed for years. I attributed this remarkable effect to 

 atmospheric influences — with which the composition of the soil had nothing to do. 

 It was, during the growth of the fruit, unusually dry for our climate. 



Let us now examine the analysis of the Pear tree, as a correct and reliable basis 

 overcome the malady to which the tree is subject. Loudon, and other eminent w 



