256 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



deposition of the eggs. One of the best washes is made by thinning down 

 soft soap until it is of the consistency of thick paint and adding a table- 

 spoonful of crude carbolic acid to each gallon of wash. Paris green and 

 lime are also added by some people. The wrapping of thick paper, or of 

 fine, wire netting, about the tree trunks will also keep the insects from 

 depositing their eggs. 



MICE AND RABBITS. 



In orchards where the trees are growing in sod, or where there is litter 

 of any kind about the trees, mice sometimes girdle them, and rabbits 

 are frequently quite troublesome. In the first case, a remedy will be 

 found by removing the conditions that favor the mice, which are also of 

 themselves injurious to the trees. If this can not be done, a mound of soil 

 free from litter placed around the trees to a height of one foot will save 

 them from the mice. Mice, and to some extent rabbits, can be fenced 

 out by wrapping the trees in the fall with paper or netting. Another 

 remedy is to paint the tree trunks in the fall with a lime or cement wash, 

 •to every ten quarts of which a heaping tablespoonful of Paris green has 

 been added. The smearing of the tree trunks with blood is claimed by 

 some to keep away rabbits. 



PEACH YELLOWS. 



Of all plant diseases none is to be more dreaded than the one that for 

 the want of a better name is known as "yellows" of the peach. The 

 character of the soil, its location, and the variety of the peach seem to have 

 no effect upon its appearance, and whenever it manifests itself the best 

 thing to do is to immediately dig out and burn the trees. Nothing is pos- 

 itively known of the nature of the disease, but as it is undoubtedly conta- 

 gious it is probably caused by some low form of vegetable parasite allied 

 to the bacteria. The disease has been studied by many persons, both chem- 

 ically and microscopically, and for six years the Department of Agriculture 

 has had an expert who has given his entire attention to studying and exper- 

 imenting with diseased trees; every means has been afforded him, but, 

 although much valuable knowledge has been acquired regarding the 

 disease, nothing has been learned of its real nature. The disease has 

 been at various times ascribed to the effect of soil exhaustion, of borers, 

 of cold, of root aphides, of eel worms (Aiiguilluhe), of wet subsoil, 

 neglect of cultivation or of pruning, the excessive use of nitrogenous 

 manures, or the use of pits or buds from diseased trees. If trees are prop- 

 agated from either pits or buds of diseased trees, yellows will undoubt- 

 edly appear, but experiments by Dr. Erwin F. Smith, the expert mentioned 

 above, and others, seem to show conclusively that the other conditions will 

 not of themselves cause yellows to appear in the peach, although they 

 may induce an appearance that to the inexperienced eye may resemble that 

 disease: It is also very probable that trees weakened by any of the 

 above adverse conditions may be particularly susceptible to it. 



HISTORY OF YELLOWS. 



Although we have no definite information regarding the time and place 

 of the appearance of yellows, it is quite certain that the disease has been 

 known for at least one hundred years in the neighborhood of Philadelphia, 

 and from that point it gradually spread in all directions, appearing in 

 New York in 1801 and in Massachusetts in 1818. Within recent years it 



