infected part in your tree, using a common painter’s brush. This I prefer doing in spring, or as soon as the hoariness appears. The substance soon sufficiently hardens, and forms a varnish, which prevents any escape, and stifles the individuals. After this first dressing, should any cottony matter appear round the margin of the varnish, a second application to these parts will, I think, be found to effect a perfect cure. The prevalence of this insect gives some of our orchards here the appearance of numerous white posts in an extensive drying ground, being washed with lime from root to branch—a practice I apprehend attended with little benefit; a few creatures may be destroyed by accident, but as the animal does not retire to the earth, but winters in the clefts of the boughs far beyond the influence of this wash, it remains uninjured, to commence its ravages again when spring returns. Seasons arrive and pass away, the general features alone remaining impressed upon our minds; but they often produce consequences not commonly expected, and a departed summer or winter has frequently been the cause of some event, which we consider as exclusively occasioned by atmospheric changes, or present temperature. A warm dry summer generally occasions a healthy spring blossom the ensuing year, the bearing wood being ripened and matured to produce in its most perfect state. A wet, damp one usually effects the reverse, by occasioning an abundant flow of sap, producing wood and foliage rather than blossom; and the following spring, in such cases, from the floral vigor being diverted, has generally its blossom weak, and, though perhaps not defective, incompetent to mature the germen. This is mere reasoning upon general consequences; but so imperfect are our theories, and so many circumstances counteract the calculations, the predictions of human wisdom, which can rarely even “discern the face of the sky,” that results must more often be looked for than known. The recording of events is the province of the naturalist; and perhaps occasionally by comparing existing circumstances with past events, something approximating to probability may be obtained. The two burning summers of 1825 and 1826 are remembered by all; but it was in the succeeding year only, that the result of this heat and drought was manifested to us, by effects upon our pasture lands, which we did not expect. Not only in those on the limestone substratum, but in many that were sandy, and in the clayey which were chapped by the heat, the roots of the grasses, which we have generally considered as not being subject to such injuries, were destroyed in some cases, and greatly injured in others; and in their places frequently sprang up crowfeet (ranunculus acris, and bulbosus), and dandelions, a mere useless vegetation, which, as long as the grasses flourished, were kept in subordination and obscurity by their superior growth; while bare patches in other places told us of