GUM, among gardeners, a kind of gangrene incident to fruit trees of the stone kind, arising from a corruption of the sap; which, by its viscosity, not being able to make its way through the fibres of the tree, is, by the protrusion of other juice, made to extravasate and ooze out upon the bark.
When the distemper surrounds the branch, it admits of no remedy; but when only on one part of a bough, it should be taken off to the quick, and some cowdung clapped on the wound, covered over with a linen cloth, and tied down. M. Quintinie directs to cut off the morbid branch two or three inches below the part affected.