46 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



used in the selection of pollenating varieties, otherwise there may be 

 discrepancies in the time of blooming, which will render them value- 

 less so far as the object in view is concerned. 



PEACH YELLOWS AND ROSETTE. 



Missouri is fast coming to the front as a peach-growing State, and 

 •for this reason the greatest care should be exercised in the matter of 

 keeping out this crop's two worst enemies, namely, yellows and rosette. 

 The former disease to a certainty extends as far west as Central Ken- 

 tucky, and it is probably only a question of time when it will cross 

 the Mississippi, if it has not already done so. Rosette, which is even 

 more viralent than yellows, already occurs in parts of Kansas, but as 

 yet it has attracted very little attention. This disease is causing the 

 most serious trouble in Georgia, where it attacks both peaches and 

 plums, killing the trees usually in about five months. Eosette in many 

 respects resembles yellows, the principal difference being an absence 

 in the case of the former of premature fruit, and a much more tufted 

 growth. 



No remedy for either yellows or rosette is known, but by proper 

 precautions it is believed that regions now free from the diseases may 

 be kept so. Briefly the precautionary measures we should recommend 

 are as follows : 



1. Procure no nursery stock from regions in which yellows exists. 



2. Import no pits, buds or grafts from such regions. 



3. Buy only from responsible nurserymen who have grown their 

 own stock and cut 'heir buds from healthy trees. 



4. Destroy the first cases of yellows or rosette on sight, and 

 continue the fight along this line. 



For five years the United States Department of Agriculture has 

 been experimenting with fertilizers to determine whether yellows could 

 be prevented or cured by the addition to the soil of various fertilizers. 

 "Potash, soda, magnesia, phosphoric acid, wood ashes, lime, nitrogen 

 and other plant foods have been used repeatedly, separately and 

 together, often in large quantities, and frequently on as many as 50 

 or 75 trees, healthy and diseased. Some of the diseased trees improved 

 in appearance and probably lived longer than they would otherwise, 

 but none of them recovered. Neither was it possible to keep healthy 

 trees in a state of health." These experiments, therefore, carried on 

 under widely different conditions and in the heart of the great peach 

 region of Maryland and Delaware, seem to clearly indicate that yellows 

 cannot be prevented or cured by the application of any of the usual 

 forms of plant food. 



