THE CANAliIAN HORTICULTURIST. 



cities, send into Canada their inferior fruit. Furthermore we venture 

 to atHrm that no liner Crawfords are grown anywhere than are pro- 

 duced on the sandy loam skirting somewhat irregularly the south shore 

 of Lake Ontario. 



It is evident therefore that any disease that tlireatens to destroy 

 this interest, in which many have now invested almost their whole 

 capital, and in which their prospects of success in life are largely bound 

 up, will not only result in terrible disappointment and misfortune to 

 such persons, but will prove an incalculable loss to the general public of 

 our country who are the consumers of this delicate luxury. 



The Nature of the Yellows is about as mysterious as that of the 

 famous pear blight, and it is useless to dogmatise upon the matter. 

 T. A. Fulton, in his Peach Culture, suggests that it is a case of arhor 

 con8ur)%j)twn arising from a deficiency in the supply of tree nourish- 

 ment ; and he thinks that it first originated in bad cultivation. Of 

 course it is a principle in agriculture that a rotation of crops should be 

 observed, lest a degeneracy of the soil result from a constant extraction 

 of one kind of plant food. It is also a matter of history, that the 

 yellows first appeared to any considerable extent in the middle States, 

 where peaches had been cultivated largely for a long period, where 

 new orchards had replaced old ones, and where grain crops had 

 exhausted the already too impoverished soil. 



The disease once abroad in the land, plenty of means were at hand 

 for spreading and propagating it. That it is contagious seems proved 

 by the experience of planters, who observe that when it once breaks 

 out in an orchard, and the affected trees are left standing, it is sure 

 to spread. Nor will* it confine its ravages to the one orchard, but may 

 extend in a few seasons throughout a whole district. 



The theory that it is also hereditary is confirmed by an observation 

 of facts. It has been found that trees grown from the pits of diseased 

 fruit will produce sickly trees, which condition the best care and 

 cultivation will not wholly overcome. And this explains the strange 

 instances quoted by Downing, of orchards in which the yellows has 

 broken out in spots, affecting trees not contiguous to each other. We 

 make the following extract under this head from that author's j^rwi^s 

 a7id Fruit Trees of America : " It is established beyond question, 

 that the yellows can always be propagated by budding or grafting 

 from a diseased tree; that the stock, whether peach or almond, also 



