246 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



veins of color. These streaks extend entirely tlirough the flesh from pit to- 

 skin, or only part way in or out. Always there is more than th6 usual amount 

 of crimson color about the pit. Sometimes, especially in white-fleshed 

 peaches like Troth's Early, Mountain Rose and Old Mixon, the whole inte- 

 rior is mottled with the brightest crimson, or becomes a nearly uniform mass 

 of this deep color. 



In some instances, in yellow varieties, particulary in Maryland, the flesh of 

 the prematures was not very high colored ; and in two or three cases I found 

 scarcely a trace of crimson spotted flesh. Noyes Darling also mentions one 

 instance in which the usual high color was wanting, the only exception he 

 ever found. 



The taste of peaches ripened prematurely by this disease varies consider- 

 ably. Usually they are insipid and worthless for eating; occasionally they 

 retain a nearly normal flavor, and not rarely they are slightly bitter or 

 mawkish. 



Such peaches seem to decay more quickly than healthy ones. Judging 

 from my own experience, the palatable ones are not injurious even when 

 eaten in large quantities. Most prematures, however, are unfit to eat. 



If the tree is in bearing this prematurely ripe, red spotted fruit is the first 

 symptom of the disease, at least the first unmistakable symptom. JSot 

 infrequently out of several hundred peaches upon a tree I saw the disease in 

 one or two only, and very often it was manifest only in the peaches on one 

 or two small limbs; sometimes, however, the disease showed itself simultane- 

 ously in peaches on all parts of the tree, affecting nearly or quite all of them, 

 the disease appearing to have attacked all parts of the tree at once. Occasion- 

 ally I saw trees loaded almost to breaking with such peaches and they were 

 as large as those on healthy trees. 



When the tree had been healthy the previous season, and especially when 

 the diseased peaches were confined to one limb or to a few limbs, I found the 

 branches and foliage perfectly normal in appearance. Indeed, judged solely 

 by their foliage and young wood, many of the di&eased trees which I examined 

 in Maryland and Delaware in July and August, 1887, would have been pro- 

 nounced very healthly, the only symptoms I could find being the prematurely 

 ripened, red-spotted fruit. 



Upon some of these trees at this time, and later in the season upon many 

 others, I found young shoots developing into a most strange and unnatural 

 growth. On many trees this was very striking, filling the whole interior of 

 the tree-top. To it the expression "fungus growth" is often applied by peach 

 growers, although it is a part of the tree itself and no fungus. This abnormal 

 growth is so peculiar and so chaiacteristic of yellows that it deserves to be con- 

 sidered at some length as the next morbid manifestation. This growth :ippears 

 to be a secondary symptom, although upon barren trees it may be the first to 

 appear, as it is often the first to attract attention. My reason for thinking 

 it is a secondary symptom is that while limbs often bear premature peaches 

 for one season without showing this diseased growth, they never in any 

 instance send forth this growth, and at the same time or afterward produce 

 healthy peaches. Having once borne these starved shoots they always there- 

 after bear diseased peaches, if they bear any. This growth consists of more 

 or less depauperate shoots which are often much branched, so as to bo sugges- 

 tive of what the Germans call "Hexenbesen" or witch brooms, some of which 

 are known to be cauued by fungus attacks. There is not only a polycladia. 



