66 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



southern half of the state. This is certainly a most important and 

 dangerous compromise, as it constantly exposes the southern orchards to 

 infection from the north. But it is better than no law, and the prejudice 

 against it will no doubt soon disappear. An attempt was made in the last 

 legislature to make a law for Maryland, but it failed. The effort will be 

 renewed, and there are evidences that the enactment will soon be obtained. 

 But the operation of the law will be much delayed by the isolated nature 

 of rural estates and the prejudice of the people. 



To all appearances, yellows in the Chesapeake country is the same as in 

 Michigan. 



But its havoc has been greater than it ever has been in Michigan 

 because of the very large orchards and the neglect of the disease. I saw 

 acres upon acres of orchard in which more than every other tree was 

 plainly diseased, many of them in the last stages. And it is almost 

 impossible in many sections of Kent county, Maryland, to find an orchard 

 free from it. It has swept the country as a mighty scourge and has 

 everywhere left despair of renewing the conflict. 



Into this beautiful region, swept with the besom of destruction, the 

 national department of agriculture has sent a faithful investigator, Erwin 

 F. Smith. Dr. Smith is a Michigan man, a person of long training and 

 careful powers of observation. He has entered upon the investigation of 

 the disease with great calmness and patience. He is working hard and to 

 a purpose, and I have great faith that he will eventually give us a clue to 

 the cause of the disease. He has extended his observations into Georgia, 

 Kansas, and Michigan, and he expects to follow the disease wherever it 

 goes. Everywhere he is making the most careful studies and he has 

 already settled many disputed points. Much of his work is tentative as 

 yet, and I am not authorized to speak of it. 



To me the most important conclusion which he has yet reached is the 

 fact that heavy fertilizing of any and all kinds has nothing more than an 

 incidental effect upon the disease. Perhaps I should not speak of this 

 fact as his conclusion; in answer to my question he only said, " Go and 

 see." There are 100 fertilizer tests now under way, comprising forty acres 

 in twelve orchards in Delaware and Maryland. There is an equal area 

 under observation and control as a check. Every combination of fertil- 

 izers which has ever been suggested for yellows is under trial, and the 

 effects of many sjjecial elements and substances have been investigated. 

 In these trials I saw the most marked effect upon color, vigor, and size of 

 tree, but none upon yellows. The disease appears equally in poor, rich, 

 and specially fertilized soils of all conditions, and it spreads equally in all. 

 I am sure that these field experiments, when the results are published, will 

 show conclusively, what Michigan growers have always contended, that 

 yellows is not caused by condition of soil nor by methods of treatment. 



In his studies of yellows Dr. Smith has discovered another enemy of the 

 peach, the work of which has been compounded with yellows and which 

 has no doubt greatly complicated our knowledge of the disease. This is 

 the peach root-louse, a black aphid which, during part of its life, works 

 upon the roots. It checks growth, causing the tree to remain small and 

 yellow, while its neighbors may grow luxuriantly. This insect is a very 

 serious fact in Delaware and Maryland, and it has been found in Michigan'. 

 Tobacco worked into the soil is found to destroy it, but it is not yet 

 determined if this remedy is cheap enough to warrant its general use. 



