174 DISEASES OF THE PEAK. 



when the warm rains of September excite its absorb- 

 ents, the gourmand drinks up large quantities of 

 nutriment, and a late and rapid growth of shoots is 

 formed. In these succulent and unripe growths, the 

 sap is retained without that vitality of leaf which will 

 effect its maturity and assimilation, being thin and 

 watery, and not sufficiently matured to enable it to 

 resist the frost, and death ensues. In the plant as 

 well as the animal, great length of time often elapses 

 before the poison affects the whole system and causes 

 death. It is not unfrequent that the tree, poisoned 

 in autumn, survives till the July following. The bark 

 of the trunk and principal limbs exhibits black spots ; 

 and on cutting into them, the bark and wood, for some 

 distance beneath, are found quite dead and black. 



The only remedy is, to cut away at once all of the 

 tree that is affected, cutting below the lowest spot. 

 But few trees attacked with this disease will be of 

 much value, even with the best treatment that can be 

 given them. Out of forty trees, six or eight feet high, 

 thus affected in one season, we succeeded in saving 

 the stumps, two feet high, of only eight or ten. These 

 trees had been brought from a distance, and planted 

 the fall preceding the attack, and exliibited by their 

 large, thrifty shoots, that rapid, unripe growth above 

 mentioned. 



Tlie most successful means of saving trees from the 

 ravages of this disease is to avoid its attack. The 

 cause being late and unripe growth, it most frequently 

 occurs on over-rich and damp soils, retentive of water, 

 and abounding in vegetable and animal matter. To 

 remove the excess of water, the best, and indeed the 



