AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 411 



wide spread branches and tliick foliage, and with that superior pro- 

 tection to liis dwelling and his family from lightning! for the 

 tens of thousands of points of one of the trees are so many times 

 superior to the points of common lightning rods ! 



Messrs. Lawton and Meigs remarked on the disease of the syca- 

 more for many years past. Mr. Lawton had noticed that at the 

 beginning the malady appeared simultaneously in several States, 

 therefore not propagated by contagion — no insect has been found 

 as cause of it. 



Mr. Pardee had examined the black knot, especially on plum 

 trees — it seemed contagious, spreading gradually to adjacent 

 trees. His remedy was to watch it, and from the punctures in 

 them like pin holes to a more advanced disease, could find no 

 cause; but he cut off all the attacked branches and burned them. 



Mr. Meigs had examined the black knots at spring, summer 

 and autumn ; has not found insects or other cause ; but rows of 

 trees affected in proportion to distance from a tree very diseased. 



Dr. Peck supposed that some matter poisonous to the tree had 

 been deposited, for experiment has proved that the poison of the 

 rattle snake kills small trees. 



Dr. Smith adverted to the remarks of President Pell on insects, 

 their vitality, &c., and that the phenomenon has existed of certain 

 insects, among them some beetles had been prepared for study by 

 transfixing them with pins, and nevertheless were revived at the 

 end of four years ! 



Mr. I awton said, in raising young treees about our dwellings 

 there is a pleasure analogous to that we enjoy in lovely children, 

 for these are the children of the forest ! 



Dr. Peck said that a tree was to us an interunion between heaven 

 and earth — its leaves in the heavens and its roots in the earth. 

 Let every man who goes to the treeless lands of our west, take a 

 quart of acorns in his pocket and plant them there. 



Subjects adopted for next meeting — " Irrigation" and "fence- 

 posts." 



The Club adjourned. H. MEIGS, Secretary. 



March 24, 1857. 



Extra meeting. 



Present — Messrs. Pres't Pell, Rev. Mr. White of Staten Island, 

 Mr. William Lawton of New Rochelle, Dr. Waterbury, Mr. Par- 

 dee, Will. B. Leonard, Prof. James J. Mapes, Dr. Smith of the 

 Times; Judge Scoville, Geo. E. Waring, Jr., Dr. Wellington, Mr. 



