276 ■ STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



dreds of others have thousands of trees growing and bearing well on land that was 

 once occupied by trees that had tlie yellows. — A. Hamilton. 



Ganges, Mich., April 14, 1888. 



8. I have succeeded in growing healthy peaclies on trees set in place of trees removed 

 which showed tlie first stages of yellows, namely, the premature ripening and spotted 

 appear&nce of the fruit. 



My first experience with yellows was eight years ago. I had one tree which un- 

 mistakabhj had yellows. I cut it down as soon as discovered, which was in August, 

 and late in the fall pulled out the stump, and removed both stump and branches, and 

 the following spring set another tree in the same place, which commenced bearing 

 the third year, and has borne a crop every year since, and still remains healthy. I 

 have had from one to a dozen trees diseased with yellows every year since, and have 

 continued the practice as stated above, many of the trees bearing now. Have never 

 yet liad a tree show yellows where set in tlie place of one removed. 



I always cut down as soon as tlie fir^t symptoms appear; seldom have one showing 

 the wiry growth. Have never used any preventatives; always give thorough cultiva- 

 tion through the fore part of the season until about the 1st of August. — A. W. Fisher. 



South Haven, Mich., April 17, 1888. 



9, In answer to your first question I can say yes, most emphatically, with this qualifi" 

 cation, not "or starved wiry liranches." The trees that 1 have cut out with yellows 

 have nearly alwaj's been thrifty and vigorous, showino; the disease only in the fruit 

 and sometimes only in two or three peaches, wJuIl- all the rest would be healthy, and 

 often only one or two limbs would be visibly affected. Thorough cultivation has been 

 my practice, and also to take out a tree as soon as it shows the disease. I have bought 

 and set a few trees that never showed an3'thing but the "starved wiry," fungus growth, 

 but took them out and burned tliem as soon as discovered. Had I carried over yellows 

 trees to bear the second season, doubtless I could say yes to the last clause of your first 

 question. 



Question 2. [VVhen was it?] I first discovered unmistakable yellows in the fruit of 

 one limb of one tree in my peach orcharding some fifteen years ago. I dug the tree 

 out and burned it before the crop matured. Do not remember as I reset the following 

 spring in this particular case, but did very soon thereafter. Have had yellows ever 

 since, reacliing as high as seventy-five bearing trees in a season, and it has been my 

 practice to reset th« following spring, all these years. 



Questions. [Under what circutiBtances?] I had read of the disease. The fruit was 

 getting color weeks ahead of the r<'8t of the tree, or others. I believed it to be the yel- 

 lows, invited my friends to see it, the first of whom unhesitatingly denied its being the 

 yellows, but could only say it wsts getting prematurely ripe for some reason. He was 

 as inexperienced as myself, and that I was right my subsequent experience proved. A 

 few trees followed the samsfate the next year, and for several years I took out and 

 reset from thirty, forty, fifty to seventy-five, and then ran down to fifty, forty, thirty, 

 ten, one, one; and last fall, with four thousand trees set and two thousand bearing, 1 

 lost six trees. You will notice that two falls I had but one case each. 



Question 4. [How many trees were thus reset?] I cannot give the exact number 

 reset, but I fill every vacancy every spring, and the most of these trees are in bearing, 

 and many of them have been until they are past their prime. 



Question 5. [How long did the trees remain healthy?] I am not certain that I have 

 lost a tree with yellows the second time in the same place. Since the orchard reached 

 a large growth, filling vacancies has been, of course, at a great disadvantage to the 

 newly-set trees, but evidently the fact that yellows trees preceded them has nothing to 

 do with it. 1 apply ashes and a little manure to the soil where the old tree grew for 

 the sustenance of the new; and for years, and last fall, the tree occupying the ground 

 where I lost my first tree with yellows was heavily laden with healthy peaches, and 

 that is only one among many like it. 



Qnestion 6. [What reason have you for thinking that the trees dug out were diseased 

 with yellowB?] 1 need only say that from observation and experience I know the yel- 

 lows at sight as readily as l do the most familiar varieties of fruit or the difference in 

 different species of trees. The best written description of the yellows is as nothing (in 

 conveying an idea or knowledge of it to a person who has never seen it) in comparison 

 with the certainty of knowledge and ability to detect it (when there are visible signs) 

 that come to some who have a practiced eye by long and interested familiarity with it. 

 — A. C. Mkrritt. 



Douglas, Mich., April 18, 1888. 



10. Jly own experience and that of some of my neighbors has, I think, fully estab- 



