166 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



beyond question that they are from regions where this disease does not 

 occur. The mere fact that the nursery stock is healthy at the date of 

 shipment is not a sufficient guarantee that it will continue so. 



Characteristics of the disease. — The primary and peculiar symptoms of 

 peach yellows are only two: (1) The red spotting and abnormally early 

 maturity of the fruit; and (2) the premature germination of ordinary 

 winter buds, or of obscure buds buried in the bark of the trunk and limbs 

 or formed in the cambium. All other symptoms result from these, or are- 

 only the common indications of disease and decay in plants. 



Plate I, accompanying the original publication of this article, represents 

 two peaches, natural size, one healthy and the other diseased. They are 

 of one variety and were gathered the same day. They were picked from 

 neighboring trees, but might have come from the same tree, since in the 

 first stages of yellows both sorts are usually found upon the same tree. 

 The unspotted peach was hard, green, and normal in all respects. It 

 would not have ripened under two weeks. When ripe its skin would have 

 been creamy white with a blush on one cheek, composed of very minute 

 and nearly uniform crimson punctations. Its flesh would have been 

 melting and juicy, slightly acid, aromatic, and delicious. The color of the 

 flesh would have been uniformly white, except for a narrow zone of crim- 

 son immediately surrounding the stone. The diseased peach was fully ripe. 

 Its size was normal; its color abnormal. The skin was beautifully mottled 

 and blotched with crimson, giving an appearance quite unlike that of 

 healthy fruit. Many of these spots were large enough and sufficiently 

 unlike the rest of the skin to admit of being easily photographed. The 

 flesh was also copiously streaked and spotted with crimson. On tangential 

 section these brightly colored portions were usually oval or roundish; on 

 radical section they appeared more often in the form of streaks or elongated 

 spots. There was also more than the usual amount of color around the 

 stone. The flavor of the peach was inferior. This diseased peach was 

 only one out of thousands occurring that year in the infected districts. 

 High-colored, premature fruits are one of the conspicuous symptoms of the 

 disease, and are easily distinguishable even from a car window. In July, 

 1891, I saw hundreds of bushels of this worthless fruit in upper Maryland 

 and Delaware, and the entire loss thereby in 1891 certainly exceeded half 

 a million dollars. 



The amount of color appears to depend somewhat upon variety. Some- 

 times there is comparatively little crimson spotting, and again, it is a very 

 marked feature, the skin being almost purple and the flesh of the deepest 

 crimson, even in pure white varieties. In an experience covering four 

 years and including a great many thousand trees diseased by yellows, I 

 have known but one in which there was entire absence of red spotting in 

 the fruit. This tree bore premature, insipid peaches and the characteristic 

 shoots. The time of ripening also varies within wide limits. I have 

 known such peaches to ripen forty days in advance of the proper time, 

 and also to ripen with the healthy fruit or only a few days in advance. 

 Generally they ripen two or three weeks in advance and are gone when 

 the healthy fruit matures. In size the prematured fruit is usually normal 

 the first season, and sometimes even noticeably large and showy. If any 

 is produced the second year it is commonly small and inferior. The taste 

 varies as much as the color, running from tolerably good to mawkish or 

 bitter. Such fruits are generally insipid, even when of good size and 

 color, and their sale not only defrauds the consumer but also reacts upon 



