CORRESPONDENCE.

Timaru Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 2818, 4 October 1883, Page 3

CORRESPONDENCE.

THE DISEASE AMONG THE PINES.

TO THB BDITOB OP THB TISfABU HEBALD. Sib, — Ai this m an interesting as well as an important subject, and|conoerns not a few, would you kindly allow me a small corner m your paper which will finish the remainder of what paper I have to spare. I lee m your issue of the 29th, a correspondent signing hiuiself " A," of Timaru, is sceptical and refuses to believe that the causo of their disease may and can bo traced to their being grown m too high latitudes. Now, my object was not to attempt to convince him, but merely giving my owd impressions as to this cause. As the subject and its bearings is a wide one, I will and must of necpsfity be as brief and explicit as possible. Well, it is admitted that there is a disease amongst them j I would ask, do either plants or animals get diseased without a cause? The question euggeßts itself, What v disease ? Let us say a disordered organisation, Home interference with tho vital powers. There are many and various causes which produce disease. Fevors aro caused through and by a vitiated and poisoned atmosphere j some people get deranged through over-indulgence, others get emaciated and die through the want of those necessaries which oro required to keep up the strain of life. Now, plants and trees being organised bodies and endowed with life, this rule holds good with them as well as with the animal world. In my previous attempt to illustrate that human beings will, and do, get diseased and die when transferred from a cold clime, where naturo dictates that their diet must con'ist of fatty substances, to enablo them to resist cold, to a tropical one, where the diet is the reverse, luscious fruits. I still contend that this rule holds good with trees, or else why so much expense and trouble bestowed m acclimatising them, as ie practised by some of the leading horticulturists of the world? Take another illustration. When members of the human family feel unwell their medical nitendant orders them here and there, further inland or nearer the tea, as the case may be. But then, perhaps the doctors err, they do some! imps ; but what about the patients, do they feel it would benefit them. But the un- ! fortunate and stately trees cannot express themselves by any sort of noise. It is a fact, perhaps too well known, that when animals (tho human one included), are diseased and sickly, vermin attack them with provoking pertinacity ; and why ? Because their weak debilitated Btate cannot resist the attack, and because the unhealthy effluvia attracts it as food. This may appear foreign to the subject (for the two words diseaso and health are diametrically opposed to each other) but it bears upon it, for if animals and trees remain healthy, it is m the nature of things that they are able to resist disfase. "A" throws out a suggestion that tbe probubility i» this disrate may have been imported. But how? No pine trees aro imported, all aro raised from seed here, and surely "A " cannot believe that a diseased treo can fully perform its functions, develop and ripen soed, and tben that this seed will germinate ! This disease on tho Bootch firs is a minute infect, which may be easily seen through a glaBS of ordinary power, the name of which I have not yet succeeded m discovering, but which not only sucks the trees of all their juiceß (lanlamount to tlie blood m the human body), but literally smothers them, thus preventing them inhaling and absorbing the air and moisture frum which they derive their sustenance. The rapidity with which this insect multiplies is amazing. 'Ihrre are many ingredients that would kill this peet, but imagine the cost of the application. The only way to do this, I contend, is to destroy those affected acd take away tho cause. Why are these pines not attacked and destroyed m their native habitat by this pejt ? Perhapß "A" will enlighten us. I cannot help thinking that " A " has not been m Timaru very long, or else he would havo discovered that between Tcmuka and tho Waitaki river lies some as good land as is to be found on this side of the Equator. I am, &.Q., T. Smith.