24 
I trust iny readers will not be disappointed 
when I say, that no merit will be due to iny 
recipes for promoting the health of the trees to 
which they are applied, further than by pre- 
venting those depredations which ai-e the cause 
of the destruction of health and beauty. I must 
bear to differ with those authors who establish to 
o 
their remedies such merits as that when they ai’e 
applied three or four months previous to the cir- 
culation of the sap, supposing it to blend with it, 
and be transmitted to various parts of the tree, 
when the sap is in motion, and promote health, 
for it certainly appears to me to be stepping from 
the common course of nature, to suppose any che- 
mical preparation is required to be applied on the 
branches of trees, to add purity and efficacy to 
their juices ; in such cases, if we were occa- 
sionally to apply pure or rain water, we should be 
more likely to render the tree much more healthy. 
Should a tree be hide-bound, or in other words 
confined in its bark, then probably it might be 
of service to assist it to extend and shed off the 
useless or rough bark. Neither can I persuade 
myself that any ingredient which will destroy the 
eggs of insects, as numerous authors assert, can 
be used without injuring vegetation very mate- 
rially ; for although we find oil destructive to 
insects, spirits of turpentine, and I believe most 
kinds of spirits, will kill insects in general, 
but not the eggs, neither can oil or spirits be 
