PEAR BLIGHT ON THE MISSISSIPPI. 



367 



main, in order to ascertain how they would 

 do under glass. They have borne two sea- 

 sons. The fruit was good, but smaller 

 than that out of doors, and the shape more 

 oval. I am satisfied that such protection 



will not improve the Isabella, and have ac- 

 cordingly had them taken up and given to 

 my neighbor who had none. Very respect- 

 fully, G. Gabriel. 



New-Haven, C't., Nov. 25, 1843. 



NOTES ON PEAR BLIGHT ON THE MISSISSIPPI. 



BY E. MALLINCKROTT, ST. LOUIS. 



Having been a subscriber to your valuable 

 journal from its beginning, there were no 

 articles which I read and studied with more 

 interest and anxiety than those on the pear 

 blight ; for I had much at stake. 



Nine years ago I imported from Germa- 

 ny, Belgium, and France, among many 

 other valuable fruits, about 80 varieties, 

 and from all parts of the Union about 60 

 more of the choicest pear trees known, 

 which I planted in the immediate vicinity 

 of St. Louis, on a new and excellent piece 

 of light rich loamy soil, where they grew 

 for seven years with a uniform soundness, 

 luxuriance and rapidity, to me before un- 

 known, even in the finest European pear 

 countries. Already did I pride myself in 

 the vanity of my heart, when I saw and 

 heard of other blighted orchards, that mine 

 would escape on account of the superior 

 care and pains I took, or imagined myself 

 to take, with my favorite children — the 

 pear trees. But alas, for all human hopes 

 and calculations ! I am humbled with bit- 

 ter disappointment now ; and my neigh- 

 bors, whose previous loss I partly ascribed 

 to less care, have their full and just retal- 

 iation upon me. 



Last year, in the spring, I discovered, for 

 the first time, that a few of my favorite 

 trees became infected with the dreaded 

 blight. Although I lopped off immediately 

 ^he injured parts, it did not at all stop the 



progress of the disease ; they speedily died 

 from the tops downward, to the roots. I 

 consoled myself as well as I could with 

 this loss of a few trees, in the hope of the 

 great numbers I had, whose soundness 

 hardly admitted the thought of an entire 

 loss. Last spring came in, after a mild 

 winter, and behold ! among 300 pear, ap- 

 ple and quince trees, the blight spread over 

 almost every tree alike, and made its first 

 general appearance as early as the middle 

 of April, after the following manner : You 

 first observe the young shoots, which have 

 started from the terminal bud of the previ- 

 ous fall, suddenly wither. Wherever this 

 is the case, you find a cavity in the centre 

 of said terminal buds, evidently eat out by 

 an insect, which itself, however, you never 

 discover ; for by the time the shoot wilts, 

 it is already gone ; as you frequently dis- 

 cover a small black point on the side of the 

 bud, where it has most probably made its 

 exit in the larva state, tumbled on the 

 ground, wherein it perfects itself into a 

 black insect of the size of a flea, the larva 

 of which must be very diminutive, and the 

 eo-g of which is doubtless deposited in the 

 bud the previous fall ; whereupon said lar- 

 va grows during the first warm days in 

 spring by feeding upon the sap and mar- 

 row of the young shoot. But after the bug 

 is perfected, it spreads over every part of 

 the tree, and feeds upon the sap, until tho 



