BLIGHT. 351 



is very obscure ; an extraordinary snail (testacellus 

 halotideus)* is now spreading by transplantation 

 in many places, and may hereafter occasion inquiry. 

 The first visit of this aphis to us is by no means 

 clear. The epithet of American blight may be 

 correctly applied ; but we have no sufficient autho- 

 rity to conclude, that we derived this pest from 

 that country. Normandy and the Netherlands, 

 too, have each been supposed to have conferred 

 this evil upon us ; but extensively as this insect is 

 spread around, and favourable as our climate ap- 

 pears to be to its increase, it bids fair to destroy in 

 progression most of our oldest and long esteemed 

 fruit from our orchards. The same unknown de- 

 cree, which regulates the increase and decrease of 

 all created beings, influences this insect ; yet wet 

 seasons, upon the whole, seem genial to its consti- 

 tution. In the hot dry summer of 1825, it was 

 abundant every where ; in the spring of 1826, 

 which was unusually fine and dry, it abounded in 

 such incredible luxuriance, that many trees seemed 



* This creature was first observed, I am told, about the year 

 1819, in the nursery garden of Messrs. Miller and Sweet, near 

 Bristol, introduced, as is supposed, on some imported plant. It 

 increases readily in our climate. The white moss rose (rosa mus- 

 cosa, var. alba) : this beautiful variety was first produced about the 

 year 1808, in the garden of Gabriel Goldney, Esq., at Clifton, 

 near Bristol ; a branch of the common red moss rose, becoming 

 diseased, produced its flowers white. A neighbouring nurseryman, 

 being employed by that gentleman's gardener to lay down the 

 branch, from cuttings propagated the variety, and shortly after 

 dispersed many plants. 



