370 
SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR 
“ TORCH HIiLI. ” AND “ BROOMSEDGE.” 
As a portion of the following was incorrectly printed 
in our November number, we now give it correct, with 
the rejoinder of “Torch Hill 
“Torch Hill!” — A friend, whose criticisms are as 
genial and hearty as they are (sometimes) caustic — (the 
well-known and redoubtable “Broomsedge”) — in alluding 
to G^tr pleasant and racy ‘ Orchard Rambler” and rural 
Poet, “F. 0. T.,” says : 
“My compliments to ‘Torch Hill !’ That cliiel burns 
the brightest light I have followed lately,” &c. 
Yes 1— “mighty little” sraoke about that torch — ’tis all 
“fat light ’ud” — sound, “heart pine” — and makes a blaze 
that will do to “follow.” — E ds. 
To which “F. O. T.” replies: 
“By the way, my dear Cultivator, if Torch Hill is a 
“blaze,” Broomsedge ought to be a perfect cortjiagrationl 
Beseech him to “fire up.” 
We believe our friend Broomsedge does “fire up” regu 
larlyinone of our contemporary journals, in his own 
State. He is too progressive and utilitarian to hide his 
light under a bushel. “Long may he wave !”— Eds. 
The Postage on the pre-paid, is 18 
cents per year. 
iDrtitttltEml ItfattmeEl. 
PEAR BRIGHT. 
Editors Southern Cultivator — The blight seems to 
be a peculiar disease, almost confined to the species Pyrus 
proper, as the Quince and Pear. The appearance of 
blight, which we remark upon other trees, is not exactly 
the blight ; but the work of insects or the immediate re- 
sult of frost or excessive heat. It is confined to a few 
branches, and has a character altogether distinct from the 
Pear blight. I have been forcibly brought to the conclu- 
sion that the Pear tree is not fully adapted to the climate 
of the United States. It is not found there in its wild and 
primitive condition. It escapes the injuries of most all 
the insects preying upon other fruit trees, which would 
not be the case if it were an indigenous product. It 
keeps its leaves only for a part of the summer ; and here, 
in the South, sends out new shoots, sometimes till the 
middle of October, and as often as three times during the 
summer. Only part of my varieties keep their leaves 
sieadily—ihe balance seem to be puzzled and uncertain, 
and have no regular periods, beyond the first (March,) 
and the second (June,) shooting season. Blossoming as 
late as in the present month of October is not uncommon ; 
but confined to some varieties. Sumrher blossoms upon 
the same varieties are not rare in the North ; and we 
have aecond bloooming even in Europe. All things con- 
sidered, and, despite my preference for the Pear, as a 
fruit, I must repeat, again, that the Pear tree is the most 
fastidious, artificial, whimsical tree of all our fruit tribe. 
Till we shall have not only Southern Seedlings, but a 
succession of generations of Southern Seedlings, and good 
luck in hitting upon the most healthy and vigorous family 
or variety, v/e cannot expect as much from the Pear as 
we do from the Peach and Apple tree. Seedlings come 
up freely, but die by the hundred, as well in Rochester 
and Boston as here in the South. Those which escape 
will make the best parents for succeeding, and, of course, 
improving generations. The blight affects the seedling 
or stock often more than the variety grafted upon it, as I 
found in many cases, where the stock had sent out one or 
two shoots just below the graft. These shoots were often 
struck entirely or partially by the blight, while the graft- 
ed part of the tree remained sound. 
That the bliglt is not the work of an insect, is my 
present conviction ; that it denotes and shov/s a weakness 
or unfitness to resist certain climatic influences, is my 
conclusion, based upon long and careful observation, and 
this is the case as well at the North as at the South I 
can only add that I have prevented the further extension 
or development of incipient blight (for there is a blight 
which I call instantaneous, and another which comes by 
degrees and sets in slowly) by calling the sap to the sick 
spot, by means of longitudinal incisions, compelling the 
tree to go to the healing process, by the expansion of its 
bark and a fresh supply of sap. I found, moreover, that 
in larger trees the blight was mostly connected with some 
hidden, interior lesion, or disease, 
I have scarcely any blight among my trees planted sound 
and young, and which have started fairly. In severe 
cases, I invariably cut down the branch or tree below the 
blight. 
I hope to be enabled to say more (if I live) about the 
blight in another year from now ; but I must take my re- 
marks from a neglected, though young orchard, in my 
vicinity, as I had not over half a dozen blight cases in 
18,000 or 20,000 Pear trees in my place, and not so many 
in my son’s Nurseries, close by *, and I do neither expect 
nor wish to study the case in our grounds 
It is easier to describe the blight than to find out any 
remedy for it, unless we look for a preventive in i\ie gener- 
al management of the tree, and all the accessory con- 
ditions of soil, locality and climate, I cannot repeat it 
too often— Pear trees do not grow everywhere in all con- 
ditions, in neglected soils, &c. Some varieties are more 
hardy, and will bear neglect and “adverse circumstances 
but, as a general rule, and as exotics, they want care and 
some skill to keep them in good condition. 
I have alluded before to the unsteadiness of the Pear 
tree in its periods of resumed vegetation Here, it seems 
to me, is one of the greatest «auses of the blight. It is 
not rare to see a pear tree send out blossoms and leaves in 
October and even in November. The sap must be, of 
course, active and filling up all the vessels. Suppose a 
sudden frost setting in, those vessels will be strangled, the 
sap corroded, and, although the tree does not immediately 
show the signs of the havoc, its next effort to grow and 
blossom will bring out the extent of the evil. 
This atrophia, or paralysis, when slight, can sometimes 
be overcome by prompting the sap to rush to the spot, by 
means of incisions (lengthwise), by cutting down part of 
the injured leader, (as for a limb, that must be, in all cases, 
removed), and in the most desperate cases, that is when 
the tree has been struck to its very heart, by removing the 
blighted parts with the saw or the knife, a few inches be- 
low the black, as far down as we can find a healthy, bright 
green liber and bark. The least brown, dull, color left, 
will prove a poison to the remainder of the tree and final- 
ly will kill it to the very root. 
I do not pretend to say that frost or a sudden and vio- 
lent check of vegetation is the only cause of the blight. I 
only judge from experience that it is the most common. 
Such a stop or check, although not always producing the 
blight, (in some varieties it will not,) is, in all cases, a 
serious drawback to thegrowth of the tree. In such cases 
and with such varieties, as with many old sorts of the 
apple, the heart only is affected and death is mediate, not 
immediate. In apples we call it the black, and that comes 
out only when the heart of the lignum is going to utter 
decay. 
Suppossing this to be as I always, long ago, found it to 
be the case, all we can do is to prevent the anomalous 
starting of the sap late in the season We can (in some 
