32 FACT NUMBER TWO. 



lodged, by myriads, on the under side of the leaves and 

 about the blossoms. But in due time, this green mite be- 

 comes a winged insect, and passes from one branch of the 

 tree to another. It visits the fruit after it has become fairly 

 formed : feeds on the tender skin, and not only stints the 

 growth of the plum, but mars its beauty and vitiates its quali- 

 ty. The leaves and the fruit thus wounded by the louse 

 and the fly, or the winged louse, as it is called, shrivel up, 

 turn yellowish, and generally drop off at an early period 

 of the season. This is the beginning of the evil. 



Now, it is a well known fact, that the leaves perform the 

 same office in the vegetable world, which the lungs perform 

 in the animal world ; they are the means of sustaining respi- 

 ration, — the channel through which the tree breathes. If, 

 therefore, these have been wounded, and have dropped to the 

 ground, during the breathing or growing season, it is evi- 

 dent, that so far, at least, the growth of the Spring Shoot, 

 is actually stifled. 



What then is the natural consequence ? Does the shoot 

 or tender sprout instantly die ? No ; — but it has a death 

 stab which it will not survive. By this stab, the sap, the 

 life of the sprout, becomes vitiated, and that portion of it 

 which should have gone to feed the decayed leaves and fruit, 

 not only remains in the newly formed spring shoot, but falls 

 back to the point where the sprig or shoot first took its ver- 

 nal start, and there forms an irregular bunch under the bark, 

 and upon one side of the shoot. This bunch, though small 

 at first, soon becomes perceptible ; it presents a wood-like 

 appearance, yet without any regular grains or lairs, but 



