August 22 . 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
391 
minutiae connected with scientific investigation. But I 
will address myself to a practical view of the question, 
and endeavour to deduce some advance in practice, 
through a consideration of by-gone facts. 
I am here tempted to point to a most peculiar kind of 
coincidence, in the appearance of those numerous evils 
which we are obliged, for the present, to lump under the 
term “ blights.” Most of our readers will remember 
the appearance of a singular fly, somo fourteen years, or 
more, since. These appeared in such shoals, that the 
j air, in some parts of the kingdom, was thickened with 
them, and people could scarcely draw their breath 
without drawing in a host of these flies. They might 
; be, aptly enough, compared to the myriads of spores of 
the fungi, which are said to ramble “ to and fro” in the 
earth, with an immeasurable degree of liberty. All 
these things have, doubtless, a high behest to perform; 
for wo find, in Sacred writ, judgment pronounced against 
nations given up to iniquity, by a threat of “ the canker 
worm, and the palmer worm.” However, let us re¬ 
member, that with certain ills in the animal system, a 
degree of knowledge and perseverance is implanted in 
the mind of man to search for an antidote, or a euro; 
and that, unquestionably, our great Creator never in¬ 
tended such talents to lie idle. We have been told of a 
certain venemous serpeut, the fat from which cures its 
owu bite; and a singular matter it is; and who, forsooth, 
would condemn his neighbour, being mortally stung, 
from seizing at once on so ready an antidote. 
To return to that singular visitation of flies : I believe 
that I shall not be singular, if I endeavour to show, that 
ever since that strange visitation, the evils that beset 
vegetable life have much increased. The Potato disease, 
that greatest scourge of our time, came on the heels of 
this fly visitation; and since then, complaints seem annu¬ 
ally on the increase; complaints, I fear, but too well 
founded; not made by a few bilious minds, but very 
generally by men who do not stand with their arms 
folded, and who are too “ well up ” in their profession to 
need recourse to petty excuses to cover ignorance or 
neglect. 
To turn for a moment more pointedly to these 
blights, let us see what the position of the kingdom at 
large may be said to have been during the past, or pass¬ 
ing, summer. Apples, in many places, exceedingly 
blighted; the aphides, red spider, and American blight, 
one, or all, in array against them. Plums, during June, 
or the early part of July, were as though they had been 
scorched, through the ravages of the Plum aphis. They 
are here laden with fruit, but the fruit became stationary 
for weeks, through the loss of the foliage. Strange to 
say, they have now mado new foliage, and the fruit is 
I going on kindly again, but the wood and blossom buds 
for a future year must prove imperfect. Such crops of 
Greengages 1 never saw, and they are tolerably clean. 
The former remarks on Plums refer chiefly to standards. 
Cherries, too, suffered much; and as to Pears, they have 
suffered exceedingly, in many cases, by a sort of smutty 
fungus, something like what may be found on the Orange- 
trees occasionally. But there is, also, a host of small 
scaly insects of the coccus tribes. These last are new to 
me ; I do not remember to have seen them on the Pear 
before; for they do not, by any means, carry the ap¬ 
pearance] of the oyster-scale at present. These last 
depredators have been followed by thousands of humble 
bees for many weeks; these have buzzed about con¬ 
stantly from nine a.m. to seven p.m., sucking, no doubt, 
the sweet and viscid exudation, or excrementitious mat¬ 
ter, proceeding from these insects, and which some 
people are fond of calling “honey-fall.” Blade Currants 
have been a partial failure almost everywhere. I have 
been pretty fortunate, but my bushes were much infested 
with the usual fly. The Hoses, in many places, I have 
been credibly informed, have suffered exceedingly; but 
here I have been fortunate, for never, in the course of 
my practice, have I had such a profusion of noble 
flowers, and foliage, too, without a speck, and free from 
insects. They have been the admiration of all; and as 
I have a somewhat peculiar mode of handling them, I 
must one day endeavour to make a convert or two 
through the medium of The Cottage Gardener. 
And now I may advert to Vines; and here I may at 
once expose my own short-comings. The Vines hero 
broke, blossomed, grew away with unusual vigour this 
spring, and I chuckled over my apparent success, when, 
lo! that horrible pest, the mildew, or Oulium Tuelceri, 
paid us a visit. We are, here, unfortunate enough to 
have houses covered with a glass that must burn, do 
what you will. These houses were built, about twenty- 
four years since, by a Birmingham firm, and are metallic, 
with too sharp a pitch. The party contracted for them, 
and they professed to have a very superior new glass. 
Well, everybody was just beginning to go-a-head in 
those days; and many, as the world can testify, in trying 
to win by a nose, or “ half-a-neck,” as our racing friend, 
Mr. Beaton, cutely observes, dashed their cranium 
against the front of the winning, post, by which said 
mishap second or third horses have been known to win; 
yea, mere “out-siders.” But I must leave the stable, 
and get back to the hothouse, crying mercy for this 
truant whimsie. We then, I say, dropped in with 
glass which must burn; and having received annual 
visitations of this burning, less or more, for a score 
years, I at first attributed the suspicious appearance of 
the foliage to “burning.” I was the more willing to do 
so, having a great aversion to as much syringing as 
will deface that bloom which must ever be the con¬ 
comitant of a perfect bunch of grapes; for even the 
blackest of the black Hambro’s can never wholly satisfy 
without it. But finding it was, indeed, the Oidiim, I 
threw all bias overboard, and got to work with the 
liydro-sulphuret of lime, so often adverted to in con¬ 
nection with this terrible pest. This hydro-sulpliuret, 
after three applications, set the enemy at nought; but 
not until he had committed too much havoc to bo lightly 
considered. 
To wind up my list, let me observe, that our excellent 
contributor, Mr. Appleby, has pointed to the fact, that 
in the course of his perambulations—which are some¬ 
what considerable—he has mot with numerous com¬ 
plaints of bedding flowers having suffered much from 
aphides, &c. I cannot, certainly, affix my signature 
thereto, for I never knew bedding succeed so well in my 
days; but I do not by any means question the fact. 
To sum up—after all this matter for reflection, given 
out, I fear, somewhat discursively—what shall we say 
as to future progress? The past is manifest, and must 
constitute the text of many a gardening sermon. 
Two things strike me as features in this case:—the 
one, that preventives must take the place of remedials; 
the other, a question as to what period, on general prin¬ 
ciples, to apply such. I have, myself, found so much 
difficulty in carrying on a warfare against these lilli- 
putian enemies, in the growing season, that it strikes 
me most forcibly we might do much more than we do 
in the rest season by way of preventive. I am the 
more impressed with this idea, through the success I 
have for years experienced in out door Peach-culture, 
attributable, in no small degree, to the pertinacity with 
which I have applied preventives. We do know, that 
with few exceptions, sulphur is a powerful enemy to 
most of the Acarus family, one of which, at least, com¬ 
monly called the red spider, is but too well known to 
the knights of the spade. Soft-soap is a severe punisher 
to most of the Coccus tribe; and as for the aphides, I 
think it by no means unlikely, that some Chancellor of 
the Exchequer, perhaps, in King James’s days, stoutly 
encouragod the breeding of the Aphis family, for they, 
