400 PLAIN AND PLEASANT TALK 



ringing or decortication of branches, for the purpose of 

 accelerating matui-ation or improving the fruit. Every year 

 the saw takes off a third, a half, and sometimes more, of a 

 living tree ; and the effect is to ])roduce new shoots, not 

 death. Is an operation which can be safely performed by 

 man, deadly when performed by an insect ? Dr. Masher 

 did not detect the insects without extreme search, and then 

 only in colonies, on healthy branches. Do whole trees 

 wither in a day by the mere suction of such insects ? Had 

 they been supposed to poison the fluids, the theory would 

 be less exceptionable, since poisons in minute quantities 

 may be very malignant. 



While "Nve admit a limited mischief of insects, they can 

 never be the cause of the prevalent blight of the middle 

 and western States — such a blight as prevailed in and 

 around Cincinnati in the summer of 1844 — nor of that 

 blight which prevailed in 1832. The blight-beetle, after 

 most careful search and dissection, has not been found, nor 

 any trace or jjassage of it. Dr. Mosher's insect may be set 

 aside without further remark. 



I think that further observation will confirm the follow- 

 ing conclusions : 



1 . Insects are frequently found feeding in various ways 

 vipon blighted trees, or on trees which afterAvard become so. 



2. Trees are fatally blighted on which no insects are dis- 

 cerned feeding — neither aphides nor scolytus pyri. 



3. Multitudes of trees have such insects on them as are 

 in other cases supposed to cause the blight, without a sign 

 of blight following. This has been the case in our own 

 garden. 



III. Cause of the Blight. — The Indiana Horticultural 

 Society, early in the summer of 1844, appointed a committee 

 to collect and investigate facts on the Fire-Blight. While 

 serving on this committee, and inquiring in all the pear- 

 growing regions, we learned that Reuben Reagan, of Putnam 

 County, Ind., was in possession of much information, and 



