56 Notes and Glemiings. 



should grow as it does." He thinks "the contradictor}- results of various theo- 

 ries would alone be sufficient to destroy them ; " and that all arguments deduced 

 from rainfall, drought, wet soil, dry soil, and miasmi, fall to the ground for pre- 

 cisely the same reason. " Varieties, standards or dwarfs, niodes of propagation, 

 and all that class of arguments, the contradictory evidence kills of itself" Mr. 

 IVIeehan asserts that the fire-blight is the result of the growth of a parasitic fun- 

 gus, the seeds of which float in the atmosphere, attaching themselves to the 

 bark, whether diseased or not, germinate, and, by pushing their thready roots 

 through the tissue, destroy it ; going round the circumference of the place for a 

 few inches wide, girdling the branch in fact, and thus killing it. All other theo- 

 ries than this upset each other. Assuming this to be correct, the enemy must 

 be attacked at his first approach, and stopped by cutting away and burning the 

 infected parts before the spores have had time to propagate the species. Each 

 cultivator must do this for-himself, and thus prevent the disease from spreading 

 to his neighbor. 



While thus reproducing Mr. Meehan's theory, I am too much of a novice in 

 pomology either to affirm or deny it. His great experience gives weight to 

 every suggestion he may offer. Still, one may with propriety entertain a differ- 

 ent theory. He finds the enemy floating in the atmosphere ; but why not also 

 look for it in the earth, at the root of the tree ? I have long entertained the idea 

 that there is a specific nutriment for every plant, and that we should labor to 

 discover it. It is measurably so in the animal kingdom ; and the curative art is, 

 to great extent, a system of specifics. Every plant must have its appropriate 

 food, as every sickness has its appropriate medicine. The soil wherein it grows 

 cannot possess an unlimited supply. Hence, in time, the plant will instinctively 

 take up all that may be within its reach ; the soil becomes exhausted ; the plant 

 declines in various ways, as a consequence ; and, in the case of the pear, this 

 decline is manifested in various forms, — blight, cracking of the fruit, and failure 

 to bear. Old standards become worthless from sheer exhaustion of the soil. 

 An old Seckel produces fruit of barely half the original size, when generous 

 manuring would jDrevent all declension. 



This theory of looking at the root for the cause of declension has in many 

 cases been found to be correct. Some years ago, the amateur owner of many 

 pear-trees, among them a fine Virgalieu which had produced excellent crops, 

 was about to cut it down and cast it out, as it then yielded only blighted, cracked, 

 and miserable specimens of fruit. He considered the variety as worn out, and, 

 in his soil, worthless. But the late Mr. Downing cautioned him about being too 

 hasty, and suggested certain fertilizers as worth trying before he exterminated 

 his trees. Mr. Downing told him he believed they had exhausted the proper 

 elements from the soil, and that, instead of being cut down, they should be reno- 

 vated. T.wo Virgalieu trees, twenty to thirty feet high, were accordingly oper- 

 ated on in the fall. The rough outer bark was scraped off, and painted with soft- 

 soap ; and the head and branches were shortened in one-third. A trench four 

 feet wide and twenty inches deep was then dug all round the tree, leaving an 

 inside ball, or circle, six feet across ; all the roots beyond it being cut off. The 

 soil from the trench was carted away ; and new soil from a pasture-field, where 



