S42 
The American Blight in Apple-Trees, 
[Jan. 1, 
light aft, to come from Nova Zemhla, 
i\merica, or Siberia, a ‘thing, however, 
not more difficult to conceive, than with 
I'ontana and Sir Joseph Banks, that they 
keep their constant lullaby in the air, the 
punctual and faithful agents of nature, 
ready to act on the first notice. On 
this hypothesis we are to conclude, that, 
should there happen a succession of 
warm seasons, unfriendly to the propa¬ 
gation of blight, and should the greater 
^art of the affiresaid eggs perish in con¬ 
sequence, either that a remnant would 
be saved at home, sufficient for the pur¬ 
pose of propagation, or that a new im¬ 
portation would take place from Siberia, 
on every new predominance of the 
winds which blow from that supposed 
store-house of blight. I formerly, and 
perhaps deservedly, earned the pleasure 
of being laughed at as a reviver of the 
exploded doctrine of equivocal genera¬ 
tion, because tliere seemed to me some- 
t’ning extremely equivocal and unac¬ 
countable in the origin of animalculce, 
from putrefaction. Where do the pecfi- 
cull statiorr themselves, to be ready at 
tlie call of the mor'hiis pediculo4ii$} Are 
their eggs also imported, or do they keep 
dreadful watch and \vard in our own at¬ 
mosphere ? There are, however, many 
probable and satisfactory truths, the ac¬ 
tuality of which w'e are destitute of the 
means of proving. 
Scion’s American blight, then, if he 
rather chuse a foreign import, may pos- 
sibly be blown from that distant coast. 
The eggs may be deposited, during either 
autumn or spring, upon the branches of 
the apple-tree, and those protuberances 
raised, whence probably the insects issue 
in due season, to the destruction of tlie 
apple-blossom and crop. There is yet, 
I have no doubt, a radical preventive 
remedy, which I have, indeed, repeated¬ 
ly experienced in cases of common 
blight; I mean the labour and expense 
of manual application, of which an esti¬ 
mate may be made comparatively with 
the prospective value of a crop. I have 
so 'succeeded, to my fullest expectation, 
with both apple and cherry-trees. A 
smothering straw-fire should be made 
early in October, in calm weather, un¬ 
der each tree, and kept up during an 
liouf or more. This finished, scrape 
the moss and impurities from the trunk, 
and fiom every obscure hole and cor¬ 
ner, Set your ladders to the branches, 
carefully cleaning them in the same way, 
taking from the remaining leaves every 
web or nidus of insects. If need be, 
w'ash the trunk, and all the larger wood, 
with a solution of lime and dung. Las- 
of all, it is necessary to destroy the int 
sects, or eggs, which may have dropped 
upon the ground, and may be useful to 
loosen the soil in the circumference. In 
the spring, or early blighting season, 
apply your ladders, make a careful sur¬ 
vey of every tree, and act in conse¬ 
quence ; repeat this monthly, picking 
oft' all blights by hand, and using the 
water engine where ablution may be 
necessary. To those wlio love fruit, or 
the market-profit thereof, every orchard 
or garden, little or great, will amply re¬ 
pay such trouble and expense. 
With respect to those protuberances 
in rhe wood, occasioned by the insect, 
wliich is denominated the American 
Blight, some extraordinary measures 
may be necessa.'-y, lest the seeds of the 
blight remain concealed therein. Per¬ 
haps opening and scraping them wdth the 
knife, and the ruhbing-in of some such 
composition as brimstone and black- 
soap beaten up together. But our 
owners of orchards, in general, do not 
like all this [fuss, and labour, and ex¬ 
pense—they would have the man’s mo¬ 
ney for nothing; that is to say, they sit 
down and complain of blights and of 
short crops, and yet are unwilling to 
wag one preventive finger. Just so, in 
their character of farmers, with respect 
to seeds; they talk and complain, and 
write of this weed, and that, and the 
other, giving us a grave rigmarole of their 
natural history and habits, and where 
they are to be found, without assigning 
to us the precise reason, wliy they are 
to be found at all — which subsists mere¬ 
ly in the fanners’ own good pleasure and 
actual choice. If otherwise, why not 
exterminate, all weeds, root, and branch, 
by the most certain and possible opera¬ 
tions of the hoe-culture,? when, their 
seeds being destroyed, or prevented from 
vegetation, the devil himself must be in 
them if they yet come, equimcallvy and 
in despite of the rules both of nature 
and science, and the industry of labori¬ 
ous prevention. 
I make the above remarks with an 
exception in my mind, favourable to 
your laudably inquisitive correspondent 
Scion. 
On Irish fiorin-grass, the reader will 
please to be referred to my observations, 
pages 235 and 314, Monthly Magazine 
for April and November, 1810. I have 
sincd 
