268 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



hands of practical peach growers? After two years of observation and 

 inquiry iM Michigan, Maryland, and Delaware, I must say I cau not find that 

 it has. So far as my own observation goes the most that can be said in favor 

 of any phosphate or potash treatment is that the trees become greener and in 

 some cases {troduce premature fruit for a year or two longer than otherwise. 

 On the Delaware and Chesapeake peninsula it is the rule rather tiian the 

 exception to use commercial fertilizers, and some of the orchards which I have 

 examined have received very large doses of fertilizers containing potash, phos- 

 phoric acid, sulphuric acid, chlorine, etc. ; but it is almost the universal testi- 

 mony that as a remedy for peach yellows, or even as a preventive, they are of 

 no value whatever. A few men hold a contrary opiniou, and in some instances 

 I took special pains to visit their orchards, learn the treatment and note the 

 condition of the trees. 



In September, 18S7, learning by newspaper reports of some trees near 

 Smyrna, Del., which had been cured of yellows, I visited the place and 

 examined the trees. They are on the farm of J. Scout, near the village. 

 Mr. Scout himself did not assert that the trees had been cured, but said 

 "There they are. You can judge for yourself." 



I found a row of fifteen trees, ten years old, of several varieties. They were 

 on level ground, next a gooseberry patch, and near a prolific vineyard. The 

 treatment began four years previous and was at first accidental. At that 

 time the ground under the trees on the side next the berry patch received 

 the same dressing as the latter — i. e., a very heavy coating of privy manure. 

 Since then in the spring of each year the trees have received a dressing of 

 ground bone at the rate of 600 pounds per acre, and of kainit at the rate of 

 400 pounds per acre. 



The condition of these fifteen trees, was that three were healthy; one was 

 dead; one was doubtful and ^e?j ha i yellows, six of them being full of the 

 characteristic shoots and badly diseased, while the other four showed unmis- 

 takable signs of it. In thirteen and fourteen there were some indications of 

 recovery, but nothing definite. Mr. Scout thinks that all had the disease 

 four years ago, but of this I do not feel ctrtain. 



n. II. Appleton, of Odessa, Del., has boned and potashed his orchards very 

 liberally for years, but trees u()o:i his place were badly diseased by yellows in 

 1887 and 1888, and although his shrewd neighbors are losing their young 

 orchards by the wholesale, as I know from pj'sonal inspection, they have not 

 confidence enough in his treatment to apply it to their own trees. 



One of the most striking failures of this treatment is on the "Cassiday" or 

 *'Peach-Blosbom" farm, on the north bank of the Sassafras Kiver. in Cecil 

 county, Md. The farm is now managed by John P. U. Polk, of Wilming- 

 ton, Del. He has been a firm believer in the efficacy of this treatment, and 

 for four years, i. e., since tiie disease began to become serious in that region, 

 has given the young 50-acre orchard very heavy dressings of an excellent peach- 

 tree fertilizer, prepared for him by I. P. Thomas & Son, of Philadelphia, 

 after the Penhallow formula, at a cost of $33 per ton. 



I visited and examined this orchard August 29,1888. It contains 50 acres; 

 the front 15 is six years old ; the back 35 is eight years old. The whole farm 

 has been in peach orchard, but in this field ten years intervened between the 

 removal of the old orchard and the planting of this one. The soil is nearly 

 level upland — mellow clay loam with a yellow clay subsoil. The trees are set 

 108 to an acre. Yellows first appeared in the older part about 1884. The 



