270 MANUAL OF FRUIT DISEASES 



Peach-yellows, and similar diseases, like rosette and little- 

 peach, are best known because of their destructiveness and 

 obscure causal nature. The best authorities gave up the 

 unsolved problem of their causes several years ago. And to- 

 day these troubles remain in obscurity, at least in this respect. 

 Control measures for these diseases are therefore puzzling 

 and ineffective. In many localities peach-yellows is the most 

 dreaded of all peach enemies. But for the whole United 

 States brown-rot and leaf-curl are the most important diseases. 



BROWN-ROT 



Caused by Sclerotinia cinerea (Bon.) Schrot. 



This disease, which is called brown-rot of stone-fruits, mold, 

 blossom-blight, twig-blight, peach-rot, brown-rot canker and 

 other names, was not given serious consideration in America 

 prior to 1881. It is now a well-known fungous trouble wherever 

 the peach is grown, both in Europe and in the United States. 

 The pathogene causing brown-rot probably came from some 

 foreign country. History shows that the disease has been 

 more serious in some years than others in America. In 1887 

 it attracted no little attention in Maryland and Delaware. 

 In 1891, 1893, and during subsequent years brown-rot has been 

 of considerable importance in the Delaware and Chesapeake 

 peninsula. Alabama growers experienced a severe epiphytotic 

 in 1897, while in 1900 the disease was the most conspicuous 

 and the most destructive in Georgia since the beginning of 

 stone-fruit culture in that state. 



Brown-rot is most prevalent and most destructive in the 

 warmer peach-growing states, such as have already been 

 enumerated. In warm, wet seasons the trouble is severe in 

 the northern states. The light-colored varieties are generally 

 regarded as the most susceptible. Those showing least rot 



