178 



THE AMERICAN GARDENER. [Chap 



than a cause. If the disease proceed from blight^ 

 there is no prevention, except that which is suggest- 

 ed by the fact, that feeble and sickly trees are fre- 

 quently blighted when healthy ones are not ; but, 

 when the insects come, they add greatly to the evil. 

 They are generally produced by the disease, as 

 maggots are by putrefaction. The aiifs are the 

 only active insect for which there is not a cure ; 

 and I know of no means of destroying them, but 

 finding out their nests, and pouring boiling water on 

 them. A line dipped in tar tied round the stem, 

 will keep them from climbing the tree ; but they are 

 still alive. As to the diminutive creatures that ap- 

 pear as specks in the bark ; the best, and perhaps, 

 he only remedy against the species of disease ol 

 which they are the symptoms, consists of good 

 ^ants, good planting and good tillage. When or- 

 ^ards are seized with diseases that pervade the 

 whole of the trees, or nearly the whole, the best 

 way is to cut them down : they are more plague 

 than profit, and, as long as they exist, they are a 

 source of nothing but constantly-returning disap- 

 pointment and mortification. However, as there 

 are persons who have a delight in quackery, who i 

 are never so happy as when they have some specific 

 to apply, and to whom rosy cheeks and ruby lips 

 are almost an eye-sore, it is, perhaps, fortunate, 

 that the vegetable world presents them with pa- 

 tients; and thus, even in the cotton-blight or can- ^ 

 ker, we see an evil, which we may be led to hope is ^ 

 not altogether unaccompanied wdth good. 



LIST OF FRUITS. ^ 



299. Having, in the former parts of this Chap- , 

 TER, treated of the propagation, planting, and cul- , 

 tivation of all fruit trees (the grape vine only ex- 

 cepted) it would remain for me merely to give a 



