TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING. 53 



the appropriation of sufficient funds by congress, not only to meet its pre- 

 sent needs but also to provide for other lines of work that are seen to be 

 necessary. 



EECENT INVESTIGATIONS CONCERNING PEACH YELLOWS-NOTES OF DR. SMITH'S 



WORK DURING 1891. 



Since the publication of the first bulletin on yellows, in 1888, there has 

 been a considerable increase in the infected area. The southern boundary 

 of the region where the disease is prevalent, has moved south some twelve 

 or fifteen miles, and during the three years. A large number of new cases 

 have developed during the last season, in the mountain region of western 

 Maryland, where peach-growing is a comparatively new industry, and in 

 parts of New Jersey not previously infected, so that no portion of the 

 latter state can be said to be free from the disease. It has also been 

 frequently observed in Connecticut. West of the Mississippi it has 

 appeared in northern Texas and in Arkansas, and is reported to have 

 appeared near Davenport, Iowa, though its appearance there is not posi- 

 tively established. In Michigan it has been reported as on the increase 

 about Fennville, and at least a portion of this increase seems to be due to 

 laxity in the enforcement of the yellows law and prompt destruction of 

 infected trees. Attempts have been made there by growers to prevent or 

 cure the disease by the application of certain washes and mixtures, rather 

 than to promptly destroy the infected trees, which is thus far the only 

 preventive known. 



Yellows has also appeared at Ann Arbor but has been promptly taken 

 in hand by an active and efficient commissioner. Most of the cases 

 reported from there are found in orchards planted with trees from New 

 Jersey, and Dr. Smith regards it as an unsafe practice to plant trees 

 grown in that state or in infected localities anywhere. 



In one orchard, composed partly of five-year-old trees, grown in a 

 locality where orchards were badly diseased, and partly of six-year-old 

 trees from a locality where the disease was known to exist, though not to 

 so great an extent, the development of yellows in a single year numbered 

 forty per cent, of the five-year-old trees and only twenty-five per cent, of 

 the six-year-olds. He has found unmistakable cases of yellows in 

 nurseries and has established the fact that in trees budded from the 

 apparently healthy side of a tree partially diseased, the disease may remain 

 dormant at least two years. 



Three years of experiment, composed of 125 distinct tests of fertilizers in 

 different combinations, and on an area of forty acres, with an equal area 

 under like conditions but without the fertilizers, show no indications of 

 the possibility of either the prevention or cure of yellows by the use of 

 fertilizers. In some cases the treated trees show even a higher percentage 

 of diseased trees than do the untreated ones. 



In the course of the investigation of yellows, Dr. Smith has discovered 

 and investigated a new disease of the peach that has thus far confined its 

 attacks to Georgia and Kansas. This is apparently distinct from yellows. 

 It usually shows first in the earlier starting of the buds in spring, and a 

 peculiar bunched appearance of the growth which gives it the name 

 " rosette." Usually the whole tree is attacked at once, though sometimes 

 only a portion of it. If it sets fruit the fruit drops before ripening; it 

 never prematures its fruit as do trees affected by yellows. Commonly the 



