10 



application ; the cure must be one affecting the canse ; the 

 disease must not only be eliminated from the system of the 

 plant, but from the soil also. If weeds and rubbish are to 

 be buried, such should not be done merely to get rid of 

 them, but to benefit the condition of the soil and every 

 means must be adopted to insure their becoming useful, as 

 they are not ornamental. 



They must not "be hermetically sealed up in a small 

 hole, cut cheese like, in a cold retentive soil but, should be 

 mixed generally with the soil, an operation which will make 

 the land friable and rich at the same time decomposition 

 will not be checked and the trees will be generally benefit- 

 ed. A sample of partially decomposed vegetable matter 

 found during digging in a cold sour retentive soil after 80 

 Inches of rainfall clearly shows what sort of food the plants 

 have in their proximity. This substance is composed of 

 leaves of forest trees, twigs avid general debris and is found 

 to be completely bound together with fungoid filaments. 

 Immediately it is broken up, exposed to the air and general- 

 ly mixed with soil it changes its appearance and the fungus 

 disappears does this prove that the food for the fungus 

 has passed into a mere advanced stage and has become food 

 for a higher order of plant ? I cannot help thinking that 

 the cure or at least mitigation of the fungoid pests is to be 

 brought about more by mechanical operations, coupled with 

 the application of manurial dissolvents than by any other 

 means. Lime, Potash and Soda coupled with digging, 

 draining, pruning and handling, are certainly among the 

 most probable remedies for these most ruinous pests. Any 

 remedy must go in at the root and must be placed in, and 

 affect the soil. The plant should be treated as a human be- 

 ing. First let us equalize the circulation of the blood (sap) 

 secondly invigorate its constitution with suitable food and 

 tonics (mineral and nitrogenous manures) and by mechani- 

 cal means convert the noil into a state which will favor and 



