42 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



certain fine old sorts, the ends of the branches of which have a peculiar mil- 

 dewed appearance (such as the old Eed Eareripe, the Early Anne, etc.), which 

 seems to check the growth without impairing the health, are rarely, if ever, 

 attacked by tiie Yellows. Slow growing and moderately productive sorts, like 

 the Nutmeg peaches, are almost entirely exempt. We know an orchard in the 

 adjoining county where every tree has gradually died with the Yellows, except 

 one tree which stood in the center. It is the Eed Nutmeg, and is still in full 

 vigor. It is certainly true that these sorts often decay and suddenly die, but 

 we believe chiefly from the neglect which allows them to fall a prey to the 

 peach-borer. Indeed the frequency with which the borer has been confounded 

 with the Yellows by ignorant observers, renders it much more difficult to arrive 

 at any correct conclusions respecting the contagious nature of the latter disease.* 



It may be said, in objection to these views, that a disease which is only an 

 enfeeblement of the constitution of a tree, would not be sufficient to alter so 

 much its whole nature and duration as the Yellows has done that of the peach. 

 The answer to this is, that the debility produced in a single generation of trees 

 probably would not have led to such effects, nor to any settled form of constitu- 

 tional disease. But it must be borne in mind that the same bad management 

 is to a great extent going on to this day, the whole country over. Every year, 

 in the month of August, the season of early peaches, thousands of bushels of 

 fruit, showing the infallible symptoms of the Yellows,^a spotted skin, etc., — 

 are exposed and sold in the markets. Every year more or less of the stones of 

 these peaches are planted, to produce, in their turn, a generation of diseased 

 trees, and every successive generation is even more feeble and sickly than the 

 last ! Even in the North, so feeble has the stock become in many places, that 

 an excessive crop of fine fruit is but too frequently followed by the Yellows. 

 In this total absence of proper care in the selection both of the seed and the 

 trees, followed by equal negligence of good cultivation, is it surprising that the 

 peach has become a tree comparatively difficult to preserve, and proverbially 

 short-lived ? 



Abroad, it is well known that the peach is always subjected to a regular 

 system of pruning, and is never allowed to produce an over crop. It is not a 

 little singular, both that the Yellows should never have originated there, and 

 that, notwithstanding the great number of American varieties of this fruit that 

 have been repeatedly sent to England and are now growing there, the disease 

 has never extended itself, or been communicated to other trees, or even been 

 recognized by English or French horticulturists. We must confess these facts 

 appear to us strong proofs in favor of our opinion as to the nature and origin 

 of the malady. 



REMEDY FOR THE YELLOWS. 



It may seem to many persons a difficult task to rid ourselves of so wide- 

 spread a malady as this, yet we are confident that a little perseverance and care 

 will certainly accomplish it. In the present uncertainty with regard to its 

 contagious nature, it is much the wisest to reject " the benefit of the doubt," 

 and act upon the principle that it is so. We know at the present moment 

 several gardens where the trees are maintained in good health by immediately 

 rooting out and destroying every tree as soon as it shows marked symptoms of 

 the malady. 



* All knowledge relating to the Yellows appears to us as much iu obscurity as when this was written. 

 In oir experience no one variety seems more liable to be aitueked than another, the most vigorou3 trees 

 beinT; aa often affected as those of moderate growth.— C. D. 



