284 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



the death of these trees was not given. This would have made a more com- 

 plete case. 



Two or three years later a writer in The Farmer and Mechanic states that 

 from his own observation and experience he is led to believe that the disease 

 has been aggravated and spread by budding from trees containing incipient 

 seeds of the disease not yet externally developed. A bud may be taken from 

 a tree which is apparently sound but not really, and after a time both trees 

 will become affected. 



In 1849, S. W. Cole, an unusually careful writer, states that " healthy 

 trees, inoculated with buds from diseased trees, soon become affected also." 

 He speaks guardedly on most points, but dogmatically on this one — says it is 

 a " well-established fact." 



In 1853, J. J. Thomas, another careful writer, says of peach yellows, " It 

 is quickly induced by inserting the bud from an affected tree into a healthy 

 stock." 



Dr. F. S. Dunlap states that from experiments in his garden and on his 

 farms, principally between 18G5 and 1886, he is perfectly sure that yellows 

 can be transmitted by budding. He has inoculated from twenty-five to thirty 

 trees in different years, " with buds taken from yellows trees with the result, 

 invariably, of giving yellows to the tree budded," The inoculated trees grew 

 from pits of "natural" fruit procured in North Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee 

 and Kentucky. 



|tDr. Henry Ridgley is also authority for the statement that yellows may be 

 produced by budding. Many years ago, when not so well acquainted with 

 yellows, he inoculated quite a large number of seedlings with buds procured 

 from a tree which bore choice looking prematures. All these trees died of 

 yellows within a few years. None lived long enough to bear fruit. 



Hon. T. T. Lyon also states that when yellows was first introduced into 

 Michigan it was budded into seedling trees and distributed in this way. At 

 Benton Harbor, an early Crawford tree, iu.'ported from New Jersey, ripened 

 its fruit in advance of the usual season of that variety. "In ignorance of 

 such disease this was treated as a sport, and the tree was literally cut in 

 pieces to supply buds for propagation." 



In 1882, G. H. La Fleur, of Millgrove, Mich., undertook to settle the in- 

 fectious nature of yellows by experiment. Concerning his experimeuts he 

 writes ae follows, under date of September 30, 1887 : 



The following Augnet (1882) I budded thirty-two sound stocks to buds taken from a 

 tree showing yellows in the fruit but not in the tree itself. Eight of the buds started 

 the following spring. Four only started one-half inch to one inch, and then failed to 

 grow and soon died; one bud ^'rew three inches; one a little ovex four inches; two buds 

 grew eight and ten inches high; all turned yellow and looked sickly. In August of the 

 same year I pulled up the trees and burned them. After doing this it occurred to nie 

 that the stocks should have been left in the ground to grow, to test the question as to 

 whether yellows could be communicated to healthy stocks by inserting diseased buds. 

 I hope you will test thoroughly this last point, as that is of great importance to know. 

 If the disease can be connimnicated to healthy stocks by inserting diseased buds, that 

 fact would prove yellows to be a contagious disease and not the result of starvation or 

 any lack of elements in the soil. 



In this case an opportunity was certainly lost. Had Mr. La Fleur left the 

 trees for a few years, he would have learned beyond question whether yellows 

 can be communicated to the stock by the insertion of diseased buds. This 

 is the very gist of the iuquiry. A diseased bud could not be expected to make 

 a very healthy growth, and yet it might not transmit disease to the stock. 



