IX. Notice of the Botany of the White-Mountains, in the State of New-Hampshire. By the EDITOR.

IN the first volume of this Journal, some mention was made of an ascent of the White-Mountains, in the state of New-Hampshire, by Mr. William D. Peck, and the Reverend Dr. Menasseh Cutler. It is there observed, on the authority of the last-named gentlemen, that "a species of Erica, or Heath, is said to be one of the plants which they found, in their botanical excursions, on the mountains. Should this prove to be the case, it will appear, that North-America is not, as has been supposed, wholly destitute of this family of plants, both the species and individuals of which are so extensively dif fused through the old world*."

Since the publication of the above notice, I have received a letter from Dr. Cutler, in which he informs me, that Mr. Peck has found the plant "to be a species of the Andromedat.”

From Mr. Peck I have also received a letter, an extract from which, as throwing some light upon the Alpine Flora of our country, I here insert.

"I have not had time to draw up any account of the journey to the White-Mountains. Dr. Cutler and myself collected a considerable number of plants, but I un

* Vol. i. Part 1. Pages 164, 165.

↑ Letter dated Hamilton, Massachusetts, July 8th, 1805.

fortunately lost half of mine, in descending a gulley. While we were labouring up the mountain, I twice exclaimed, a Heath! and was as often disappointed. The first shrub I took for one was Empetrum nigrum: the other I believed to be an Erica, till my arrival at home. It seems more allied to Andromeda ; its leaves are nearly of the size and figure of those of our Hemlock-Fir.

*

"I found Azalea procumbens and Azalea Lapponica, and I am almost sure of Diapensia Lapponica. Dr. Cutler mentioned his having seen something which appeared like a Tulip, when he was on the mountains formerly. We had the good fortune to meet with it, and it proved Bartsia pallida. We found Vaccinium oxycoccos (not macrocarpon); some other species of Vaccinium; a small shrub, in fruit, which seems a Kalmia, and a few other plants. On the very summit, I collected a Clerus formicarius, and one other species of the same genus. In the woods, at the foot of the mountain, some of our company collected a fine specimen of Michaux's Streptopus, in fruit, but we could not save it*. Some of these plants have never before been collected, or in any other place, I believe, in the UnitedStates, which indicates that the White-Mountains are the highest in the United-States."

*All Michaux's species of Streptopus are natives of the mountains of Pennsylvania, Virginia, and other parts of the UnitedStates, where they were (if I do not mistake) first discovered by the younger Mr. Marshall, who named the genus BARTONIA. EDITOR.

X. Facts and Observations concerning the Disease of Rust, as it affects the Wheat, and other Cerealia. In a letter to the EDITOR, from his Brother, Mr. RICHARD PETERS BARTON, of Frederick-County, in Virginia.

YOU are desirous, I find, to obtain information relative to the Rust, and have proposed several queries in regard to this disease, which I will answer, as far as I am able.

The evil here was greater than was supposed, when you left us. Many crops were nearly lost, and few escaped without material injury.

The information you received, that the Shanandoah lands are subject to rust, is correct. It is also true, that all the river-lands in Virginia are subject to the disease. In short, it is the evil of all our lands lying in low and moist situations, especially such as lie contiguous to swamps and marshes.

This disease appears to me to be intimately connected with an excess of moisture combined with immoderate heat for neither, without the agency of the other, will produce it. A succession of rains, from the beginning of June until harvest (the period when the rust generally prevails), will not produce the disease, if the weather be pretty cool, and the air not stagnant. Lively currents of air accompanying rain, or immediately succeeding it, will, I believe, always prevent rust. Neither will exces

sive heat, if the air be dry, generate it.

But should much rain be followed by that state of air which we call close, sultry, and damp, and which we find so remarkably oppressive to our feelings, the rust is almost certain to strike (as the farmers term it) the wheat. Nor is it necessary that much rain should precede the disease: on the contrary, heavy fogs, or very copious dews, accom, panied, or immediately succeeded (while the wheat is wet) by great heat and a calm state of the air, more frequently generate rust than immoderate rains,

Such a state of the air more commonly prevails on the margins of rivers, marshes, swamps, mill-ponds, very flat or bottom-lands, than elsewhere; and it is lands thus situated that are most subject to the disease of rust,

In the southern parts of Virginia, where the heat is frequently very great, even as early as the middle and latter end of May, the rust sometimes destroys the wheat in the boot (as we term it); that is, before the heads have fully put out; but more frequently it occurs when the heads are completely formed, and in blossom, or in the milky state. On this side of the Ridge*, I have never known it strike the wheat earlier than the middle of June: more commonly from the 20th to the latter end of the month. In the latter case, injury is not materially done, except to very late wheat, or such as had not the grain completely formed. At this period, if the rust be violent, we find particular spots, in our best and most forward fields, injured. These spots are

The Blue-Ridge, or South-Mountain.