Its cause, and a remedy for it. 453 



eight entirely killed. Of seventeen trees of the Bell pear, 

 eleven suffered, but none were killed. All in this region 

 know the vigorous habit of this tree. Of eight Crassane 

 Bergamot, (a late grower,) five were affected and two 

 killed. In an orchard of 325 trees of 79 varieties, one in 

 seven blighted, 25 were totally destroyed. Although a mi- 

 nute observation was not made on each tree, yet, as a gen- 

 eral fact, those which suffered were trees of a full habit 

 and of a late growth. 



6. Mr. White, a nurseryman near Mooresville, Morgan 

 county, Indiana, in an orchard of from 150 to 200 trees, 

 had not a single case of the blight in the year 1844, though 

 all around him its ravages were felt. What were (he facts 

 in this case? His orchard is planted on a mound-like piece 

 of ground ; is high, of a sandy, gravelly soil : earlier by a 

 week than nursery soils in this county ; and in the summer 

 of 1843 his trees grew through the summer ; wound up 

 and shed their leaves early in the fall, and during the warm 

 spell made no second growth. The orchard, then, that 

 escaped, was one on sucli a soil as ensured an early growth, 

 so that the winter fell upon ripened wood. 



7. It may be objected, that if the blight began in the new 

 and growing wood, it would appear there; whereas the 

 seal of the evil, i. e. the place where the bark is diseased 

 or dead, is lower down and on old wood. Certainly, it 

 should be ; for the returning sap falls some ways down be- 

 fore it effects a lodgment. 



8. It might be said that spring-frosts might produce this 

 disease. But in the spring of 1834, in the last of May, 

 after the forest trees were in full leaf, there came frost so 

 severe as to cut every leaf; and to this day the dead tops 

 of the beach attest the power of the frost. But no blight 

 occurred that year in orchard, garden or nursery. 



9. It may be asked why forest-trees do not suffer. To 

 some extent they do. But usually the dense shade pre- 

 serves the moisture of the soil, and favors an equal growth 

 during the spring and summer; so that the excitability of 

 the tree is spent before autumn, and it is going to rest 

 when frost strikes it. 



10. It may be inquired why fall-growing shrubs are not 

 always blighted, since many kinds are invariably caught 

 by the frost in a growing state. 



I reply, first, that we are not to say that every tree or 



