On the f-yhile-BU(jht, or Americait Bikj. 431) 
noxious insect becomes more serious and extensive in each succeediniij 
year. 
Now as the very number of cures for this mischief is quite sufficient 
to perplex the inexperienced, it will be expedient to give more exten- 
sive publicity through the medium of your popular Register, to remedial 
measures already published, and practis'^d in Gloucestershire with great 
success, rather than add to the list of recipes extant. 
In funherance of this view of the subject, and because spring is the 
season recommended for commencing tiie operation of destroying Blight, 
I now Cjuote the following, from the most interr-sting work on rural 
subjects that has appeared since the publication of White's Natural 
History of Selborne. 
"Many remedies," says our accomplished author, "have been pro- 
posed for removing this evil, efficaciotjs perhaps in some cases upon a 
, small scale ; but when the injury has existed for some time, and extended 
its influence over the parts of a large tree, I apprehend it will take its 
course, and the tree die. Upon young plants, and in places where a 
brush can be applied, any substance that can be used in a liquid state, 
to harden into a coat, insoluMe by rain, will assuredly confine the ra- 
vages of the creature, and smother it. Hard rubbing with a dry brush 
crushes many, but there are crevices into which the bristles cannot enter: 
thus some escape, and propagation continues. I have very successfully 
removed this Blight from young trees, and from recently attacked places 
in those more advanced, by an easy application. Melt about three 
ounces of rosin in an open pipkin ; take it from the fire, and pour into 
it about three ounces of fresh oil ; the ingredients perfectly unite, and 
when cold, acquire the consistence of honey. A slight degree of heat 
will liquify it, and in this state paint over every node or infected part in 
your tree, using a common painter's brush. This I prefer doing in 
spring, or as soon as the hoariness appears. The substance soon 
hardens, and forms a varnish, which prevents any escape, and stifles 
the individuals. After tiiis first dressing, should any cottony matter 
appear round the margin of the varnish, a second appHcation to these 
parts will, I think, be found to effect a perfect cure, 
"The prevalence of this insect," adds our author, "gives some of 
our orchards here the appearance of numerous white posts in an ex:ten- 
sive drying ground, being washed with lime from root to branch ; — a 
practice, I apprehend, attended with little benefit : a few creatures may 
be destroyed by accident, but as the animal does not retire to the earth, 
but winters in the clefts of the boughs, far beyond the influence of this 
wash, it remains uninjured, to commence its ravages again when spring 
returns." — Journal of a Naturalist, page 352, 
On the last paragraph, however, I must observe, but with great 
deference for the writer's opinion, that the eflicacy of the lime-wash. 
