62 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1896. 



that there were two diseases peculiar to our fruit trees, which he 

 designated as " Meazels and Lowsiness,"* and there is reason to be- 

 lieve that the corn smut, which never appears to cause a very large 

 amount of destruction, at least here in New England, has probably 

 existed for many centuries, and was undoubtedly a legacy handed 

 down to us by the Indians, and so likewise was the rust and smut of 

 the wheat a legacy from Europe in colonial days, as it has been sub- 

 ject to these troublesome diseases for a long time here in Massachu- 

 setts. 



Even so far back as 1664 it is recorded that " a greate and dread- 

 ful comet, or blazing-star, appeared in the south-east in New England 

 for the space of three moneths, which was accompanied with many sad 

 effects, great mildews, blasting in the Countrey the next summer,"! 

 and about one hundred years later, 1754, " an idle opinion obtained 

 among the vulgar that since the execution of the Quakers [1659] 

 wheat was always blasted. "J 



These statements are sufficient to show that the early settlers were 

 much vexed with the presence of plant diseases, and a perusal of the 

 lengthy sermons and prayers of those by-gone days, whose scope was 

 limited only by the horizon of experience, would occasionally reveal 

 to us the sincere pleadings addressed to a Divine Providence for a de- 

 liverance from these pests. 



It has been believed in New England for a century or more that the 

 barberry bush is in some way connected with the blasting of wheat. 

 According to Dwight,§ "wheat near the barberry was always 

 blasted, and always in the direction of the wind " ; and in another place 

 he states : " The barberry bush in New England was generally be- 

 lieved to blast both wheat and rye through the very copiously emit- 

 ting of a pungent effluvium." It was not uncommon in those days to 



Note. — John Tarkinson, an old English writer, mentions canker in trees in 

 1629. He states : " The canker is a shrewd disease when it happeneth to a 

 tree; for it will eate the barke round, and so kill the very heart in a little 

 space. It must be look into in time before it hath runne toofarre; most 

 men doe wholly cut away as much as is petted with the canker, and then 

 dresse it, or wet it with vinegar or cowes pisse, or cowes dung and urine, 

 etc., untill it is distroyed, and after healed againe with your salve before ap- 

 pointed." 



* The way to cure them when they are lowsie is to bore a hole into the 

 main root with an Augur, and pour in a quantity of Brandie or Rhum, 

 and then stop it with a pin made of the same tree. — Josselyn Voyages, 1638- 

 1663, p. 146. 



t Josselyn's Voy., p. 200, also pp. 207 and 208. 



X Neal's Hist, of New Eng., 1754. 



§ Dr. Timothy Dwighl's Travels in New Eng., 1821, vol. 1, p. 382. 



