382 On a Disease in Elm Trees ■ 



to old elms, and known to botanists more than half a century 

 since; particularly Duhamel du Monceau, in 1758, in his 

 work entitled " La Physique des Arbres ;" Dr. Carl Ludovic 

 Willdenow, professor of natural history and botany, in the 

 University of Berlin, who speaks of this disease under the 

 name of " carcinoma arborum;" M. Brisseau-Mirbel ; the 

 Reverend Patrick Keith ; Professor Link ; and many other 

 writers of great consideration and authority. 



There are other affidavits, showing, as at Cheltenham, the 

 innocence of gas, after having been used for several years in 

 the midst of the public walks, and close to the roots of the 

 elms there, and pointing out the existence of the identical 

 disease in many places where gas never was. 



Upon the whole, the facts, the reasonings, and opinions, 

 adduced by a large number of first-rate men, appear to me 

 so perfectly conclusive that I conceive it would have been 

 impossible, had the case gone before a jury, to have doubted 

 as to the result. 



I have myself since inspected some elms in the rookery at 

 the arsenal at Woolwich, and in a field belonging to Earl 

 Ferrars, at Bayswater, and in several of the gardens of the 

 colleges at Oxford, and I find the disease the same, with this 

 only difference, that in Camberwell Grove, or the neighbour- 

 hood, it is evident that there are persons who have an object 

 in getting rid of the trees, as either injurious to health or 

 building speculations, who have violently ripped off the bark, 

 as it has become loosened by the diseased state of the tree. 

 The trees are now certainly dying, although they budded and 

 came into leaf apparently as strongly as their more healthy 

 neighbours ; and the present hot summer seems likely to 

 complete what the heat ~of last year, aided by the drains and 

 adjoining buildings, probably contributed to commence. 



It is by the communication of individual knowledge and 

 experience that society, in the aggregate, is benefited, and by 

 giving place to communications of such experience, that the 

 character and intelligence of our gardeners will be raised. 



I have no other object in this communication, than the 

 contributing my mite of information to the general stock, and 

 I ought, perhaps, to apologise for having taken up so much of 

 your valuable work. 



I am, &c. &c. 



A Constant Reader. 

 London^ August 26. 1826. 



