OBSERVATIONS ON BLIGHT. 143 



Art. XVI. — Observations on Blight. By Rusticus. 

 Epistle II. 



Sir, — I don't know why our brethren on the other side 

 the Atlantic are charged with sending us the greatest pest of 

 our orchards, but so it is. We call an insect the American 

 blight, which for aught I could ever make out, may have come 

 from China or Botany Bay. However, a name once in vogue 

 will have its day ; and one might as well attempt to turn a pig 

 in an entry as argue against an established belief; so American 

 blight it shall be. In very hot weather you may now and then 

 see this blight on the wing ; it has just the look of a bit of 

 cotton, or a downy seed, floating in the air, and is driven by 

 every breath of wind quite as readily. If you catch and ex- 

 amine it, you will find it to be just like the plant-louse which 

 infests our rose-trees, &c. ; but, unlike all other plant-lice, it is 

 clothed and muffled up with cotton-wool, in such quantities, 

 that you would at first have no more idea that the lump con- 

 tained an insect, than that the mass of clothes on a stage-coach 

 box in winter, contained a man. Some folks wonder what can 

 be the use of so much clothing ; I am not much of a theorist, 

 but I should guess that the vermin came from the torrid zone, 

 and Nature kindly furnishes this garment to protect them from 

 the cold of our climate. 



These blights wander wherever it pleases the wind to carry 

 them ; and if bad luck should drive one of them against the 

 branch of an apple-ti-ee, there it will stick, creep into a crack 

 in the bark, bring forth its young, and found a colony ; the 

 white cotton soon appears in large bunches ; branch after 

 branch becomes infected; the tree grows cankery, pines, and 

 dies. How this is effected no one knows, though the cause 

 and effect are too evident to escape the notice of the com- 

 monest clown. In large orchards it is vain to hope for a 

 cure, but not so in gardens. Directly you see the least morsel 

 of cotton, make up your mind to a little trouble and you will 

 get rid of it. In the first place, get a plasterer's whitewashing- 

 brush, then get a large pot of double size, make your man 

 heat it till it is quite liquid, then go with him into the garden 

 and see that he paints over every patch of white, though not 



