THE DISEASES OP THE PEACH TREE. 43* 



1. We would therefore commence by exterminating, root and branch, every 

 tree which has the Yellows. And another tree should not be planted in the 

 same spot without a lapse of several years, or a thorough removal of the soil. 



2. The utmost care should be taken to select seeds for planting from per- 

 fectly healthy trees. Nurserymen, to secure this, should gather them from the 

 latest ripening varieties, or procure them from districts of the country where 

 the disease is not known. 



3. So far we have aimed only at procuring a healthy stock of trees. The 

 most important matter remains to be stated — hoio to preserve them in a healthy 

 state. 



The answer to this is emphatically as ^oWovis,'. pursue steadily, from the 

 first tearing year, the shortening-in system of pruning already explained. This 

 will at once secure your trees against the possibility of over-bearing and its 

 consequences, and maintain them in vigor and productiveness for a long time.* 

 It will, in short, effectually prevent the Yellows where it does not already exist 

 in the tree. To whoever will follow these precautions, pursue this mode of 

 cultivation, and adopt at the same time the remedy for the borer already sug- 

 gested, we will confidently insure healthy, vigorous, long-lived trees, and the 

 finest fruit. Will any reasonable man say that so fine a fruit as the peach does 

 not fully merit them ? 



Whether the system of shortening-in and careful culture will prevent the 

 breaking out of the Yellows, when constitutionally lateyit in the tree, we will 

 not yet undertake to say. In slight cases of the disease we believe that it may. 

 Of one thing, however, we are certain : it has hitherto failed entirely to reclaim 

 trees in which the malady had once broken out. Neither do we know of any 

 well-attested case of its cure, after this stage, by any means whatever. Such 

 cases have indeed been reported to us, and published in the journals, but, Avhen 

 investigated, they have proved to be trees suffering by the effects of the horer 

 only. 



A planter of peach trees must, even with care, expect to see a few cases of 

 Yellows occasionally appear. The malady is too widely extended to be immedi- 

 ately vanquished. Occasionally trees having the constitutional taint will show 

 themselves where least suspected ; but when the peach is once properly culti- 

 vated these will every day become more rare, until the original health and 

 longevity of this fruit tree is again established. 



* The following remarks, directly in point, are from London's last work: "The effect of shortening the 

 shootB of the peach is not merely to throw more sap into thefrnit, but to add vigor to the trpe generally by 

 increasing the power of the roois relatively to the branches. The peach being a short-livtd tree, it has beetv 

 justly remarked by Mr. Thompson, were it allmved to expend all its accumulated sap every year, it would soon 

 exhaust itself and die of old ar/e.'"— Suburban Horticultuiist. 



