DISEASES OF EVER6EEENS. 



nant in great issues to the liorticulturist as well as the mechanic and professional 

 man. We want that class of assistants in our gardening pursuits, who eschew that 

 dogged obstinacy so inseparable from superficial knowledge. "We want the men, who 

 having covaefrovi Europe, will remember that they are in America, and that the soil 

 and climate bear an important influence in controlling and modifying the least of 

 their operations. 



DISEASES OF EVERGREENS. 



BY H. W. SAEGENT, FISHKILL LANDING. 



I INCLOSE you a few leaves of the white pine, covered more or less, as you will 

 perceive, with eggs of what I take to be the "American Blight," as they call it 

 in England. If not this, it is an insect very much resembling it, and attacking 

 in its perfect state principally the axils of the limbs and branches, though being 

 more or less scattered over the tree. I have observed for several years, that our 

 larches and pines, and particularly the Scotch fir, are apt to be very much infested 

 with these troublesome insects early in June, confining themselves principally to 

 the trunks and branches on the pines and firs, but upon the larches scattered indis- 

 criminately over the foliage, and more especially attacking the young wood. By 

 August the insects upon the larch generally disappear, probably wafted by the wind 

 and the pendulous motion of the branches, and disseminated like the seeds of the 

 dandelion and thistle. Those upon the pines and firs, however, seem to remain the 

 year through, resting quietly upon the trunk, and principally at the axils of the limbs. 

 The difl'erence in the action of the insect upon the pine and larch, is that when they 

 disappear upon the latter, there is no trace of them (beyond the enfeebled growth of 

 the tree) until they suddenly make their re-appearance in June ; whereas, upon the 

 pines they seem to hang about all winter in a listless, indifierent state, while the 

 leaves of badly affected trees are more or less covered with their eggs, as is the case 

 with the leaves I enclose. 



I should be glad to know, in the first place, what becomes of the insect fi-om August 

 to June, when it re-appears upon the larch. As it has but little or no power of loco- 

 motion, as it appears, beyond the wafting about by the wind, one can hardly account 

 for its sudden re-appearance. Secondly, I should be glad to know if there is any 

 feasible method of controlling an enemy which, if he goes on progressing in numbers 

 and force, will soon destroy many of our valuable evergreens. In Scotland, I under- 

 stand, the disease has proved so formidable as to have entirely destroyed several 

 thousand acres of larch and fir plantation, upon the estate of the Duke of Athol ; 

 and I find that I have already lost several pines and Scotch firs from this most per- 

 plexing enemy. 



You may imagine how impossible it is to attack this disease in the shape in which 

 I send it to you — each leaf upon a large pine surrounded by several nests of eggs. 

 When in the spring they assume the shape of the woolly aphis, or American blight, it 



