THE DISEASES OF THE PEACH TREE. 23 



tinue the same treatment if the disease shows itself on my trees the coming 

 season. A neighbor of mine claims that he has restored several trees by the 

 application of ashes and hot water to the roots, bnt, usually this is a failure. 



As to mildew, I have known but one variety to be affected and that is the 

 Serrate Early York. The disease that troubles our trees affects the serrate and 

 the glandular-leaved trees alil*e, as far as I have observed. 



I will add that commonly, though not always, the disease firstshows itself in'the 

 fruit, sometimes attacking all on the tree at once, but generally it affects one 

 or two branches, then spreads gradually over the»tree. The fruit ripens from 

 two to three weeks in advance of its season, assumes a darker and deeper red 

 color on the surface th;in is natural, also a mottled red color of the flesh, and 

 aflffcting more or less the blossom. 



Trees on poor, dry soils yield more readily to the disease than on moist, rich 

 soil, though trees of all ages and on all soils suffer. 



A. E. NOWLEN. 



LETTER FROM L. COLLINS. 



St. Joseph, April 2, 1873. 



Sir : — Yours of the 26th ult. was duly received. Mr. Chamberlain, St^cretary 

 of the Berrien County Horticultunil Society, will answer your letter. He is as 

 well qualified, and perhaps better thau any one in this vicinity, to answer all 

 your questions in your letter. 



I have paid some attention to the raising of the peach. "We have the disease 

 called the Yellovjs without any doubt among our trees, and that to an alarm- 

 ing extent. I have lost one orchard of 800 trees entirely by the disease. I 

 will send you a few branches from a three-year-old peach tree of Eirly Craw- 

 ford, — it had a few peaches on last year, and every peach showed the disease, 

 but the foliage looked healthy. I will likewise enclose a few branches from an 

 old tree of Late Crawford that has had the Yellows two years and will die this 

 year. 



Respectfully yours, 



L. COLLINS. 



LRTTER from J. E. CHAMBERLAIN", 



Gents: — Your letter of March 26th to Dr. Collins, containing inquiries in 

 regard to '• a disease that seems to have attacked the peach trees in some parts 

 of the great fi'uit belt, lying along the south-western border of our State," 

 has been handed to me, with the request that I would, as secretary of tht St. 

 Joseph Fruit Growers' Association, and also one of the vice-presideuts of the 

 Michigan State Pomological Society, prepare an answer. This subject is one 

 which interests not merely south-western, but all the fruit belt of western 

 Michigan, north and south ; for if premature ripening of fruit is the evidence of 

 the disease termed Yellows, then this disease extends north and south, through 

 all the fruit belt of western Michigan. At the pomological exhibition at 

 Grand Rapids last year, at which the St. Joseph fruit region was entirely unre- 

 presented in the fruit display, I noticed peaches on exhibition with all the 

 marks of premature ripening so far as it was possible for external marks to 

 show disease; and I spoke to Hon. J. P. Thompson, then president of the 

 Society, on the subject. Mr. Thomas Archer, nurseryman, of St. Joseph, informs 

 me that he observed the same marks of premature ripening; while Mr. A. D. 

 Rowley, fruit grower, not only oljserved the same prematurely ri|)e peaches on 

 exhibition, but visited S|)ring Lake on purpijse to see the orchards, and found 

 trees which he pronounced itnmistaJcably diseased with the Yellows. These 



