1 82 TRANSACTIONS OF THE ILLINOIS 



of ti'ees, after being a day or two kept in corked bottles, show a yellowish 

 dust. This, when highly magnified, is found to be a minute cellular 

 growth, not unlike that found on blackberries, described by us during 

 the jear, with this marked diflerence, however, that the little cells on the 

 peach leaves are not more than one-twentieth part as large as those of 

 the blackberry, and what appear to be the older cells have a decided 

 tinge of red. 



So amusing an incident has come to our knowledge, with repsect to 

 this disease, that the mention of it here may not be without interest. 

 A gentleman who had planted a number of Hale's Early trees was much 

 pleased to find one among them three to four weeks earlier than the rest. 

 His conclusion was that this tree was a chance seedling and that he was really 

 in possession of the earliest peach known. His first intention was to bud 

 largely from it and control the variety until he could get a bearing orchard 

 of it ; but his enterprising neighbors finding him the fortunate possessor of 

 so remarkable a variety, he was, as he thought, obliged to sell buds at 

 fifty cents each, or have them stolen. His plan was to sell the buds; 

 accoi'dingly, more or less trees in that neighborhood were budded from 

 this supposed early tree. It is unnecessary for us to state the estimation 

 in which this variety was held after the fact was made clear that it was 

 Hale's Early affected with the yellows. It is only necessary to add that 

 nearly every orchard in that neighborhood is badly, if not incurabl}', 

 diseased. 



If to the difiuculties already explained, we add the peach tree 

 borer in the collar and larger roots of the trees, we have mentioned all 

 the insects and diseases which very materially interfere with growing the 

 peach. The mode of destroying the borer we will pass over, as we have 

 during the year, given the best means for ridding trees of them. 



We will next treat of some other points which may be of more inter- 

 est. In the southern half of Illinois, peach trees come into bearing some 

 at three, others at four and five years of age. As trees are ordinarily 

 treated, the first crop is best. Each succeeding one the fruit is of dimin- 

 ished size. So true is this that no saying is more common than, " that 

 peach growers are lions in the market, while they are marketing their 

 first crops, but are not afterwards heard of." There is too much truth in 

 this remark, and it is exceedingly mortifying to most persons after having 

 once gained a reputation for growing fine fruit, to see their trees in suc- 

 ceeding years producing only small and inferior specimens. Notwith- 

 standing, but few persons endeavor to solve this. This falling oft' in 

 size with age, is wholly due to a condition the trees get into, which if 

 corrected, the old trees would, in many respects be better than younger 

 ones, because old trees can be made to produce the best fruit. But before 

 we can hope for much success in preventing this gradual falling oft' in 

 the size of the fruit, we must have a correct idea of the causes; other- 

 wise, all of our eflforts would be of that haphazard character which 

 would quite as likely increase as remedy the difticulty we desire to 

 avoid. 



There are several reasons why young peach trees are more active and 



