404 PLAIN AND PLEASANT TALK 



rents of sap, one of which may be destroyed, ami the other 

 for a limited time go on. The blight, under this aspect, is 

 nothing but ringing or decortication, effected by diseased 

 sap, destroying the parts in which it lodges, and then 

 itself drying up. The branch will grow, fruit will set, 

 and frequently become larger and finer flavored than 

 usual. 



But in a second class of cases, the downward current 

 comes to a point where the diseased sap had effected only 

 a partial lodgment. The vitality of the neighboring parts 

 was preserved, and the diseased fluids have been undried 

 by wind or sun, and remain more or less inspissated. The 

 descending current meets and takes up more or less of this 

 diseased matter, according to the particular condition of the 

 sap. Wherever the elaborated sap passes, after touching 

 this diseased region, it will carry its poison along with it 

 down the trunk, and, by the lateral vessels, in toward the 

 pith. We may suppose that a violence which w^ould destroy 

 the health of the outer parts, would, to some degree, rup- 

 ture the inner sap-vessels. By this, or by some unknown 

 way, the diseased sap is taken into the inner,* upward cur- 

 rent, and goes into the general circulation. If it be in a 

 diluted state, or in small quantities, languor and decline will 

 be the result ; if in large quantities, and concentrated, the 

 branch will die suddenly, and the odor of it will be that of 

 frost-bitten vegetation. All the different degrees of mor- 

 tality result from the quantity and quality of the diseased 

 sap which is taken into circulation. In conclusion, then, 

 where, in one class of cases, the feculent matter w r as, in the 

 fall, so virulent as to destroy the parts where it lodged, and 

 was then dried by exposure to wind and sun, the branch 

 above will live, even through the summer, but perish the 

 next winter; and the spring afterward, standing bare amid 

 green branches, the cultivator may suppose the branch to 



* See Lindley, p. 82. 



