The Blight in Pear Trees. 17 



What I have there suggested as occurring in the spring by- 

 sudden alternations of heat and cold, Mr. Beecher pronounces 

 to be the result of autumnal cold. This may be so, but I 

 am not satisfied that there is yet sufficient evidence to found 

 a decision. I am now inclined to believe that it is done in 

 the winter, because I have, within two years past, lost three 

 pear trees and two cherry trees, where the dead part, or the 

 girdling, was near the ground at about snow surface. So famil- 

 iar now is my eye, with the effects on the foliage of this girdling, 

 that, when I approach the tree to examine it, I can at once apply 

 my knife to the dead spot. In the case of my pear trees, the 

 girdling of dead bark did not extend more than five inches 

 longitudinally, and, if the defect had been detected in early 

 spring by an examination of the trunk, the trees might have 

 been saved by grafting in pieces of new bark, or by uniting 

 the live bark above and below the injury, by the insertion of 

 scions, in the manner used for curing the injury caused by 

 mice and other root cuts. The cherry trees I allude to put 

 forth leaves, bloomed and set their fruit, when they faded 

 and died precisely as pear trees do in blight, having sent down 

 long strips of new wood which nearly overcame the injury, 

 and, by some timely aid, would have done so. I have also, 

 on one occasion, received trees from a nursery at a distance, 

 which perished in the same season, after making an appa- 

 rently successful growth for several months, which I found, 

 on examination, had been killed near the ground the winter 

 they stood in the row, or, at least, before they were sent to 

 me. The case of the young trees at Buffalo, which were im- 

 ported in March, and which died of blight the ensuing sum- 

 mer, was doubtless of this character. The same thing occurs 

 very often in the quince : it has occurred with me in the 

 English hawthorn trained as a standard, and, this year, I 

 have observed it in the white currant, a whole row of which 

 perished, the tops fading away with yellow leaves, and dry- 

 ing up with half-grown fruit upon them. Many persons 

 may not so regard it, but it is the same effect produced by 

 the same cause. The pear trees I have lost were one Napo- 

 leon, one Dearborn's Seedling, and one Madaleine, in each of 

 which the injury was about the insertion of the graft into the 

 stock. 



VOL. XV. — NO. I. 3 



