242 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



waimth, and the vegetation in the orchards is retarded until there is little 

 danger of frost. The equalizing influence of this great body of water is 

 very considerable. In southwestern Michigan peaches can be grown almost 

 as successfully as in Delaware, aud near thn lake can be grown to some ex- 

 tent even as far north as latitude 45^ 30'. On the contrary, in northern 

 Illinois aud in Wisconsin, on the west side of the lake and exposed to land 

 win<ls, peaches are not grown in open orchards at all north of latitude 4"^°, 

 and very little north of latitude 40°. At Madison, Wis., latitude 43*^, peaches 

 will not ordinarily live through a single winter. The same may be said of 

 all that part of Wisconsin due west of the great peach orchards of Allegan 

 ■county, Mich. What is true of Wisconsin and northern Illinois is said to be 

 true also of the northern half of Indiana. 



In recent years it has been found that peaches can be grown anywhere in 

 •central aud western Michigan south of latitude 43°, if the right locations are 

 selected. These are hills and table-lands. Trees on hilltops pass safely 

 through winters which destroy whole orchards in valleys and bottom lands. 

 This fact is now so well understood that away from the Jake it is rare to find 

 an orchard on low land. The orchards at Ann Arbor, Lawton, Paw Paw. 

 and Grand Rapids are all on the highest hills. 



To express the same fact somewhat diiferently, we may say that while the 

 peach region ^;ar exccUence lies in the southwest along Lake ^lichigan, 

 peaches may also be grown more or less successfully south of an irregular 

 line running northwest from Lake Erie to Grrand river, and thence along the 

 lake to near the northern end of the southern peninsula. Tne chief peach 

 counties outside of the most favored region are Monroe, Kalamazoo, Jackson, 

 AVashtenaw, Ionia, Kent, Muskegon, and Grand Traverse, in some of which 

 yellows has not yet appeared, and in none of which has it been present for 

 any great length of time. 



To the question, " Do peach trees continue to be planted in Michigan? " 

 there is no official reply later than that given in the state census for 1884. 

 The number of acres of peach orchards in Michigan at that time was 24,502, 

 containing 1,428,209 bearing trees. Assuming that there were one hundred 

 and nine times as many trees as acres, the number of trees not in bearing, 

 i. e., planted recently, would be 1,242,509. Aside from this evidence we 

 know that peach growing has rapidly increased of late in many places, and as 

 it has encountered no new or unusual obstacles since 1884, it is safe to 

 assume that what was then true of the State a3 a whole continues to be true. 

 In other words, we may safely conclude that one-half of all the peach trees 

 in Michigan have been set within the last four or five years, and probably as 

 many as one-fourth within the last two years. 



Summary. — So far as its present distribution is concerned, we may infer 

 that the disease occurs, or is likely to occur, anywhere in Pennsylvania, New 

 York, Ontario, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan. 



It is also certain that the disease did not appear in the west until at least 

 a half century after it had ravaged eastern orchards, nor until many years 

 after the introduction of the peach. 



Prof. Smith next considers the southwestward movement of yellows, from 

 its place of orisfin in Pennsylvania, tracing especially its progress through 

 Delaware and Maryland, and its present general prevalence. The story pre- 

 sents the same general features of the foregoing accounts, and therefore we 

 see no need of its reproduction. The disease exists in Virginia and South 



