398 PLAIN AND PLEASANT TALK 



2d. It is very plain that neither Mr. Lowell, originally, 

 nor Dr. Harris, nor any who describe the blight as caused 

 by the blight-beetle, had any notion of that disease which 

 passes by the same name in the middle and western States. 

 The blight of the scolytus pyri is a mere girdling of the 

 branches a mechanical separation of parts ; and no men- 

 tion is made of the most striking facts incident to the great 

 blight the viscid unctuous sap ; the bursting of the bark, 

 through which it issues; and its poisonous effects on the 

 young shoots upon which it drops. 



We do not doubt the insect-blight ; but we are sure that it is 

 not our blight. We feel very confident, also, that this blight, 

 which from its devastations may be called the great blight, 

 has been felt in New England, in connection with the insect- 

 blight, and confounded with it, and the effects of two dif- 

 ferent causes happening to appear in conjunction, have 

 been attributed to one, and the least influential cause. 

 The writer in Fessenden's American Gardener (Mr. Low- 

 ell ?) says of the blight, " it is sometimes so rapid in its 

 progress, that in a few hours from its first appearance the 

 whole tree will appear to be mortally diseased." This is 

 not insect-blight ; for did the blight-beetle eat so suddenly 

 around the whole trunk f Now here is a striking appear- 

 ance of the great blight, confounded with the minor blight, 

 as we think will appear in the sequel. 



This theory has stood in the way of a discovery of the 

 true cause of the great blight; for every cultivator has 

 gone in search of insects ; they have been found in groat 

 plenty, and in great variety of species, and their harmless 

 presence accused with all the mischief of the season. A 

 writer in the Farmers Advocate, Jamestown, N. C., dis- 

 cerned the fire-blight, and traced it to " small, red, pellucid 

 insects, briskly moving from place to place on the branches." 

 This is not the scolytus pyri of Prof. Peck and Dr. Harris. 



Dr. Moshcr, of Cincinnati, in a letter published in the 

 Farmer and Gardener for June, 1844, describes a third 



