154 Pathologist U. S. Department of Agriculture 



I am glad you are hard at it and I am delighted to learn of your progress. 

 At the peach meeting of our local society here [Michigan] the other day 

 one man reported several serious cases of yellows in his orchard. We have 

 but one form of the disease in our State and this is the virulent type. 

 Your description of tufts of wiry growth indicates that the trees were in 

 what we denominate the second stage of the disease, the first being that of 

 premature ripening. I am glad you are interesting Bailey and Troop. 

 I would be glad to assist you in any way I could but I have no peach trees 

 or seedlings on my place and could do nothing in the way of budding on 

 that account. I shall be greatly interested in your research in New 

 Jersey — where they have " resolved that the disease is not contagious." 

 That is like the resolution passed by the Farmers Club at the close of a 

 discussion on the Hessian Fly, " that the best way to manage was to sow 

 wheat early and have a frost occur early." Just how to manipulate the 

 frost king the record saith not. 



I enclose you the announcement of our American [Pomological] Society 

 meeting in Boston. If in your investigation you run across some testimony 

 that can be concisely stated, will you not favor us with it. . . . We had 

 one man in west Michigan that did not believe the disease was contagious 

 and was so certain that he drew a tree condemned and hauled out, all 

 around among his trees. The next season a streak of yellows marked " the 

 path in which he trod." If the trees from which you take diseased pits for 

 planting have the genuine yellows as we know it the chances are that not 

 one in a hundred will grow. I wish you would crack open a lot of the pits 

 of diseased fruit and note the appearance of the seed and germ. We find 

 it true that the disease is worst on heavy strong soils. Be sure and note 

 the character of soil with reference to fertility, and especially whether 

 barnyard manures have been freely used. 



We can control the disease perfectly among thrifty orchardists because 

 they will dig out every infected tree as soon as the disease develops. The 

 malady is not now spreading in our State on this account. 



Smith began his studies of peach yellows in Michigan. While 

 there, he arranged with Bailey, who was still a professor at 

 Michigan Agricultural College, to bud trees with scion stock to 

 be sent him. Trelease, professor in charge of the Shaw School of 

 Botany at St. Louis, regretted that he could not undertake at that 

 time a series of experiments there. In August, Bailey suggested 

 that Smith enlist the research facilities of Professor William Rane 

 Lazenby of the Ohio State University at Columbus and Professor 

 L. R. Taft of the University of Missouri at Columbia. 



Smith left Michigan and began to study the peach disease in 

 eastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland. In 

 September, Scribner was commissioned by the government to go 

 by way of Texas to southern California to study a new vine disease 



