6 APfiE-ROOT BLIGHT — ITS EXTENT. 



Canadensis), and it may possibly prove to be the fact, that this in- 

 sect is not limited to the Pomete family, but infests the roots of 

 other deciduous forest and fruit trees. 



This affection of the roots of Apple trees has occasionally been 

 noticed in our agricultural'periodicals, and various enquiries have 

 been made respecting the insect which occasions them, which en- 

 quiries have received no satisfactory answers, for the reason that 

 the insect is a new species, different from any hitherto described 

 in boolis or known to our nurserymen and fruit growers. A com- 

 munication from J. Fulton, jr., of Chester county. Pa., in Down- 

 ing's. Horticulturist, vol. iii, p. 394, gives additional evidence of 

 this being a common disease over a large extent of our country, 

 and causing great losses to our nurserymen. He says : " The 

 main purpose of my writing is to call attention to an Important 

 matter, and to ask. for light upon the subject. In taking up trees 

 this fall (1848), I notice that some of the roots will be full of ex- 

 crescences, or warts, and covered with a minute white, woolly in- 

 sect ; and that Some of them find lodgment on the trunks of the 

 trees, in the partly closed wounds made by pruning. As the 

 trees seemed vigorous, I paid little attention to the subject, until 

 another nurseryman called my attention to the subject, and stated, 

 that not being able to supply the demand for Apple trees, he had 

 been at several nurseries in this State to purchase, and was hard 

 set to get a supply, because so many proved diseased in this way, 

 and that thousands had to be thrown away. Since this, a young 

 friend of mine has returned from Virginia, where he had sold and 

 delivered several thousand trees ; and he informs me that his 

 trees were very generally so, and that he was not aware that the 

 appearance was at all prejudicial to the health or value of the 

 trees, nor did the propogator of them seem to be aware of their 

 hurtful nature. Can this insect be the « woolly aphis V And if 

 80, what can nurserymen do to get rid of a pest which, unfortu- 

 nately, is by no means rarely seen 1 I have detected the presence 

 of the insect much the most frequently on trees which grow in a gra- 

 velly or slaty soil, and seldom on trees growing in a mellow laam." 



A short description of this species was published in my cata- 

 logue of the Homopterous Insects, in the State Cabinet of Natural 



