178 THE AMERICAN GARDENER. [Chap 



than a cause. If the disease proceed from blight^ 

 there is no prevention, except that which is suggest- 

 ed by the fact, that feeble and sickly trees are fre- 

 quently blighted when healthy ones are not ; but, 

 when the insects come, they add greatly to the evil 

 They are generally produced by the disease, ag 

 maggots are by putrefaction. The ants are the 

 only active insect for which there is not a cure ; 

 and I know of no means of destroying jhem, bu 

 finding out their nests, and pouring boiling water on 

 them. A line dipped in tar tied round the stem 

 will keep them from climbing the tree : but they are 

 still alive. As to the diminutive creatures that ap- 

 pear as specks in the bark ; the best, and perhaps, 

 he only remedy against the species of disease ol 

 vhich they are the symptoms, consists of good 

 'ants, good planting and good tillage. When or- 

 ^ards are seized with diseases that pervade the 

 Avhole of the trees, or nearly the whole, the best 

 way is to cut them down : they are more plague 

 than profit, and, as long as they exist, they are a 

 source of nothing but constantly-returning disap- 

 pointment and mortification. However, as there 

 are persons who have a delight in quackery, who 

 are never so happy as when they have some specific 

 to apply, and to whom rosy cheeks and ruby lips 

 are almost an eye-sore, it is, perhaps, fortunate, 

 that the vegetable world presents them with pa- 

 tients; and thus, even in the cotton-blight 01 can- 

 ker, we see an evil, which we may be led to hope is 

 not altogether unaccompanied with good. 



LIST OF FRUITS. 



299. Having, in the former parts of this CHAP- 

 TER, treated of the propagation, planting, and cul- 

 tivation of all fruit trees (the grape vine only ex- 

 cepted) it would remain for me merely to give a 



