722 Queries and Answers. 



blight." Now, what our English gardeners describe as the " American 

 blight," and which here particularly affects apple and pear trees, is 

 evidently the larvae of some insect, enveloped in a substance like white 

 cotton, but which larvae, I suspect, are the consequence, and not the 

 cause, of the disease he writes upon ; that is, I believe that the blight never 

 fixes, except upon parts of a tree where the sap has exuded through 

 or under the bark, or where the tree has been cut or bruised, and has put 

 on the appearance he describes ; viz. " the bark becomes dead in irregular 

 blotches, contracts, and ultimately separates from the wood." He says 

 farther: — " Any thing you can offer upon the subject of the preceding 

 remarks will be particularly interesting to your American readers." This 

 leads me to mention, that, about twenty-five years since, I planted on the 

 east border of my garden, which was all newly-raised land, a row of apple 

 and pear trees, chiefly the former ; and I found that they all soon became 

 affected with the disease above described. The subsoil being (particularly 

 in winter) a morass, I planted the trees as high as possible ; but some 

 plants of the same kind, and from the same nursery, planted in another 

 and drier situation, being exempt from the disease, I considered that the 

 other trees had become affected from the absorption by the roots of too 

 much moisture. To obviate this, I planted within 3 or 4 ft. of them a 

 row of willow stakes, which soon became bushes, and now are trees. I 

 could in a short time trace the roots of these willows completely under 

 the fruit trees, and as thick, generally, as a mat. I began, consequently, to 

 fear they would ultimately destroy them ; but I was agreeably surprised by 

 finding, from the period the roots of the willows became intermixed with 

 those of the apple and pear trees, that the disease in the fruit trees gra- 

 dually, and I may say entirely, disappeared, and for the last twenty years they 

 have borne plenty of fine fruit. Now, as Judge Buel considers his trees to 

 be thus diseased, from the elaborated sap, and to be most prejudiced in 

 wet seasons, I think I am justified in supposing we both allude to the same 

 disease, and I shall be most happy if the remedial hint here given should 

 prove successful in America. As I am writing on the subject of fruit trees, 

 I shall close my subject by asking a question. In a Gansell's bergamot pear 

 tree, bearing this year its first three pears, the fruit has each a leaf growing 

 from its centre, or nearly so. Is this a lusus naturce, or has the like fallen 

 within your observation ? — Robert Camell, M.D. Bungay, Sej^t. 20. 1831. 



The case mentioned is a licsus naturcB of common occurrence (see 

 Vol. IV. p. 262.) ; and the leaves appear to be a modification of the cal3'X, 

 conformably to the modern doctrine, of all the parts of a plant being re- 

 solvable into an axis, buds, and leaves. See Lindley's Outlines, &c. — Cond. 



How to destroy the Dandelion. — I have a field which was broken up for- 

 merly, very badly laid down, and which has been neglected since. I lately 

 covered it with a quantity of coalashes, and it is now one mass of dan- 

 delions. The soil is a loose sharp gravel, and I am almost afraid to break 

 t up again. How can I kill or eradicate these weeds ? — or what will eat 

 hem ? — X Y. London, Aug. 29. 1831. 



Catalogues of acclimated Plants. — One of your correspondents makes an 

 excellent proposal, that cultivators of exotic plants shall, from time to 

 time, communicate to each other, and to the public, through the medium 

 of your Magazine, a catalogue of such plants as they shall have been able 

 respectively to acclimatise. As I have a fondness for attempting to natu- 

 ralise exotics, and am anxious to give information on that Jitad, I shell be 

 willing to offer my mite of observation to the public service, if you think 

 you can persuade some others of your correspondents to do the same. I 

 am, Sir, yours, &c. — Caiisidicus. Dec, 1830. 



We shall be happy to receive the catalogue alluded to by Causidicus, 

 and earnestly invite correspondents in every part of the country to send 

 us similar lists. — : Cond, 



