80 Blight in Fruit Trees. [August, 



Esq., whose fine garden and orchard has suffered excessively by 

 the blio-ht. Last year his gardener, as we are informed, was di- 

 rected to make a regular business of removing every limb which 

 was attacked, below all appearance of disease. This was perse- 

 vered in. This year, 1847, while the disease has been equally 

 severe, the dead limbs have been suffered to remain, and it is ex- 

 tremely interesting to observe some of the results. So far from 

 proving the death of the individual from what are usually called 

 poisoned branches, there is an unusual vigor in the parts of 

 the branches which remain. The effect is much like that which 

 follows from shortening the branches by the knife. The limbs 

 grow rapidly, and the leaves are of deep green; and they con- 

 tinue growing to a period in the season when it is unusual for 

 wood to be formed. What, however, is the most remarkable re- 

 sult or phenomenon, is the vigor of the end of a limb beyond the 

 apparently dead and dry portion of it. The limb is constricted, 

 and is nearly one quarter smaller than the adjacent parts above or 

 below. This constricted portion appears so perfectly dead and 

 dry that it seems impossible for the sap to pass through it and 

 reach the vigorous and living portion beyond; which is not only 

 bearing large leaves but also fruit, which is also equally as large 

 and promising as that upon any of the unaffected limbs. 



The effect of the disease as exhibited in very numerous in- 

 stances, is much the same as that which follows from ringing a 

 branch; a process by which the circulation, as is maintained, is 

 interrupted. Its descent to the root is at least paitially prevented, 

 by which there is an accumulation at all times of nuti itious fluids 

 in the limb above the removed or injured bark and wood The 

 constriction where the disease is seated is mechanically arrested, 

 however, with the ascent and descent of the sap; for here it 

 is evident, by the dry state of this portion of the limb, that its 

 vessels are nearly impervious; and after a short time they become 

 entirely so — the disease passing from outside to inside, and not 

 in the opposite direction. The circulation, therefore, is sustained 

 by the interior. It would seem fiom an inspection of the dying 

 branches that it is almost impossible, in many instances, for the 

 sap to pass along the limb; still, there is no doubt that this it 

 does so long as a green leaf appears. 



The following cuts exhibit the fact we have stated; and it 

 may, if followed out, throw new light upon the circulation of sap, 

 and of the nutrition of vegetables. 



