20 N. J. Agricultural Experiment Stations Bulletin 356 



Behavior of Trees on Wet Soils 



Peaches are occasionally planted on low wet areas, although all 

 authorities state that this should not be done, and that the peach re- 

 quires well-drained soil. There are often limited areas in an other- 

 wise well-drained field that are too wet at times for the best results 

 with peaches. We therefore find a proportion of peach trees grow- 

 ing under such unfavorable conditions. They may assume an ap- 

 pearance almost identical with certain stages of yellows. The foliage 

 of such trees may become distinctly yellow in color, relatively 

 small in size and the tip growth may show a rather narrow foliage 

 similar to yellows. Trees of this kind are frequently condemned by 

 persons who suppose them to be affected with yellows. 



Peculiar Behavior of Trees on Some Well-Drained Soils 



Trees on well-drained soils may sometimes assume much the same 

 appearance as described for wet soils when somt factor destroys, 

 many of the small rootlets and root hairs. The roots of trees exhibit- 

 ing these symptoms have been examined in a number of instances 

 and on all of them dead rootlets and root hairs were noted. It re- 

 quires close observation and some experience to distinguish between 

 trees affected in this way and true cases of yellows. Such trees are 

 readily distinguished from yellows and little peach by the fact that 

 the starch accumulated in the leaves during the day is transferred 

 normally during the night while in the case of trees diseased with 

 yellows and little peach the transfer is reduced or inhibited. Figures 

 10 and 11 illustrate a normal and an affected tree in an orchard near 

 Sewell, N. J., in 1920. Three such affected trees from this orchard 

 were transferred to other soil at New Brunswick by a graduate stu- 

 dent, Mr. David Schmidt, in the spring of 1921. They have already 

 begun to recover from the unfavorable soil conditions which inhibited 

 their growth at Sewell, N. J. 



