Pkach YeIvI^ows. 403 



community was united in the one determination to check- mate 

 the yellows. For a time the disease seemed to over-ride all oppo- 

 sition, but it was finally checked, and it has not seriously inter- 

 fered with the peach industry for the last dozen years. It is still 

 present, however, and in certain seasons it breaks out with re- 

 newed vigor, but these recurrences are as vigorously met by the 

 growers, and the disease again subsides. These years of renewed 

 activity of the yellows are apt to follow years of comparative im- 

 munity, largely because of the less careful scrutiny by the yellows 

 officers in the years of freedom from the disease. This deter- 

 mined fight against a common enemy has knit the peach-growing 

 community together and has developed a local pride which is en- 

 tirely absent in the peach sections of New York state. Public 

 sentiment demands that no yellows peaches shall be shipped. A 

 sign hangs in the warehouse at the port with this legend : 



" All peaches left here infected with yellows will be destroyed 

 and the owner prosecuted." 



This sentiment is unknown to the New York peach growers, 

 as a body. Everywhere I see yellows peaches on sale. 

 These peaches are not injurious to health, so far as known, but 

 they are inferior in quality, and the Michigan people have learned 

 that the sale of them hurts their reputation and market. But the 

 New York growers, as a rule, have not yet got beyond the point 

 of asking if the diseased peaches are unwholesome, and have not 

 risen to the plane of demanding that only good fruit, like pure 

 milk, shall be allowed to make their reputation upon the market. 

 And the clause of the law forbidding the sale of yellows peaches 

 is practically a dead letter. 



The success of the Michigan growers in stemming the invasion 

 of yellows has revived confidence at St. Joseph, and that region is 

 again growing peaches with its earlier eminent success. I do not 

 expect equal success in eradicating yellows in this state, from the 

 fact that the peach industry is nowhere extensive enough to make 

 it the one absorbing interest of the community. As soon as it be- 

 comes the chief occupation of any region, the people will com- 

 bine in self-interest to hold it in check. Yet the individual 

 grower, if affected orchards do not adjoin his own, can keep the 

 yellows at bay with a loss of only a few trees each year. There 



