INDIANA HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 423 



it will alleviate only, but in a bad blight there is neither -in this nor 

 anything else that I am aware of any remedy. 



There are two additional subjects with which I shall close this paper. 



1. This blight is not to be confounded with winter killing. In the 

 winter of 1837 or 1838, in March, a deep snow fell (in this region), and 

 was immediately followed by a brilliant sun. Thousands of nursery trees 

 perished in consequence, but without putting out leaves or lingering. It 

 is a familiar fact to orchardists that severe cold followed by warm suns 

 produce a bursting of the hark along the trunk, but usually at the surface 

 of the ground. 



2. I call attention of the cultivators to the disease of the peach tree 

 called "the yellows." I have not spoken of it as the same disease as the 

 blight in the pear and the apple, only because I did not wish to embarrass 

 this subject with too many issues. I will only say that it is the opinion of 

 the most intelligent cultivators among us, that "the yellows" are nothing 

 but the development of the blight according to the peculiar habits of the 

 peach tree. I mention it that observation may be directed to the facts. 



HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

 October, 1844. 



The following paper was to have been placed along with Henry Ward 

 Beecher's letter to the Magazine of Horticulture, Boston, Mass., Hovey, 

 Ed., on pear blight, but want of time excluded it. It is embodied in this 

 report for the reason set forth by Mr. Fletcher. 



Mr. President and Fellow Members— One rainy Thursday of the last 

 State Fair I met our beloved William Henry Ragan, who, for once in his 

 life, seemed disturbed. He said that in the discharge of departmental 

 work at Washington he had gone entirely through the thirty-five volumes 

 of Hovey's Magazine of Horticulture and had found three valuable con- 

 tributions from Henry Ward Beecher when a resident of Indianapolis, and 

 that to preserve the same his wife had copied them for future use. He 

 was grieved because for the first time in his life an editor looked light 

 upon his efforts and refused to print in his paper a matter of general 

 interest. He asked me to offer it to our Society at its annual meeting 

 and secure its preservation in this year's report. 



I am aware tliat to a progressive society it is in one sense a back 

 number, but it does show us that for our present magnificent display in 

 this house there was sixty years ago a substantial beginning. Excava- 

 tions in our day disclose the foundations of structures whose immense 

 proportions astound us— overshadowing as they do any efforts of modern 

 times. Time and the checlver game for national life obliterate all above 

 the ground line. The palaces of Caesar are ti-aced only by subterranean 

 walls and halls over twenty-one acres of ground. Around such ruins 

 great interest and sentiment attaches. One stone at Jerusalem attracts 



