244 Notes and Gleanings. 



Pear Blight in Mississippi. — I note in your very interesting magazine, 

 that you have commenced publishing a hst of the leading nurserymen in the 

 United States ; and though far from being such as most of them, my nursery is 

 about the largest in this state, and is devoted entirely to the propagation of fruit 

 trees, apples and pears especially. In orchard and nursery I have about forty 

 acres. Please advise cost of insertion, and I will then write you. 



I note also that your magazine seems to have little correspondence with this 

 secdon, and articles on subjects suited to our climate I do not often see — and 

 wish it were otlierwise, as I like it much. I am cultivating pears largely, and re- 

 gret that the disease — pear blight — to which your northern orchards are subject, 

 has appeared this year in a slight degree, and yet I have not seen any article 

 treating on the cause or remedy. Several varieties of pear trees have each year 

 been subject to leaf blight ; but that I can remedy at any time by an application 

 of gypsum, sprinklad over the leaves, when the dew is on them. Is there no 

 remedy for the other ? 



Our section ofTers great inducement, in the way of cheap lands, in a high, 

 healthy rolling pine country. The vine flourishes with great luxuriance, and bears 

 large annual crops. Our main difficulty is the want of reliable labor ; such as we 

 have (the negro) is perfectly useless, and really not worth feeding. To give you 

 an idea of what we are doing, I gathered peaches (Hale's), ripe, on 26th of May. 

 Ives's seedling and Clinton grapes are coloring well. Concord ripens about the 

 middle of July. My pear trees have borne large annual crops, and ripen ad- 

 mirably. Bui I fear I have bored you with this, and close. 



Very respectfully, W. Cunningham. 



Summit, Miss., June 19, 1871. 



[In this part of the country the pear blight is seldom experienced, so that very 

 little is known of it, and, in fact, very little is known certainly as to its cause, even 

 where it prevails most. Trees which make a late succulent growth are most liable 

 to its attacks, by freezing in the cold of autumn and winter. Long-jointed, vig- 

 orous growing varieties, like Madeleine and Passe Colmar, are more subject to it 

 than short-jointed, stocky growers, like Seckel. The only remedy known is to 

 amputate the part affected. The preventives are such means as will keep the 

 tree in a state of moderate growth, and cause it to ripen its wood early. Root 

 pruning has often been used with excellent effect. Ashes, lime, decomposed 

 vegetable matter, and phosphates are preferable to nitrogenous animal manures. 

 Where the soil is excessively rich, allowing grass to grow around the trees will 

 have a good effect in checking their growth, thereby rendering them less liable 

 to blight. 



We should be glad to give more information on the culture of fruits, etc., 

 suited to the southern part of our country. We thank our correspondent for his 

 note, and shall hope to hear from him again, and that others will follow his example. 

 It would be of interest to know whether the symptoms of pear blight which he 

 has observed are the same as those described by northern writers. We copied 

 in our last number a paragraph from an article of his in the Rural Southland, 

 respecting gypsum as a remedy for leaf blight. — Ed.] 



