ABOUT FRUITS, FLOWERS AND FARMING. 397 



6. Insect theory : The confidence with which eastern 

 cultivators pronounce the cause to be an insect, has in part 

 served to cover up singular discrepancies in the separate 

 statements in respect to the ravages, and even the species 

 of this destroyer. The Genesee Farmer of July, 1843, 

 *' the cause of the disease was for many years a mat- 

 ter of dispute, and is so still by some persons ; but the ma- 

 jority are now fully convinced that it is the work of an 

 insect (scolytus pyri). T. W. Harris, in his work on insects, 

 speaks of the minuteness and obscure habits of this insect, 

 as " reasons why it has eluded the researches of those per- 

 sons who disbelieve in its existence as the cause of the 

 blasting of the limbs of the pear-tree." Dr. Harris evi- 

 dently supposed, until so late as 1843, that this insect in- 

 fested only the pear-tree ; for he says, " the discovery of 

 the blight-beetle in the limbs of the apple-tree, is a new 

 fact in natural history ; but it is easily accounted for, be- 

 cause this tree belongs not only to the same natural group, 

 but also to the same genus as the pear-tree. It is not, 

 therefore, surprising, that both the pear and the apple-tree 

 should occasionally be attacked by the same hisect." [See 

 an article in the Massachusetts Ploughman, summer of 

 1843, quoted in Genesee Farmer, July, 1843.] 



This insect is said to eat through the alburnum, the hard 

 wood, and even a part of the pith, and to destroy the 

 branch by separation of part from part, as a saw would. 

 On these facts, which there is no room to question, we 

 make two remarks. 



1st. That the blight thus produced is limited, and proba- 

 bly sectional or local. No account has met my eye which 

 leads me to suppose that any considerable injury has been 

 done by it. Mr. Manning, of Salem. Mass., in the second 

 edition of his " Book of Flowers," states that he has never 

 " had any trees affected by it" the blight. Yet his garden 

 and nursery has existed for twenty years, and contained 

 immense numbers of trees. 



