THE PEACH 139 



Alabama, and the Carolinas. In many parts of Cali- 

 fornia, Peaches are also grown on a large scale, much of 

 the fruit being preserved by drying.. 



Peach Pests 



The Peach is a tender tree: it grows rapidly and its 

 wood, bark, leaves, flowers, and fruit are all delicate in 

 structure as compared with most other fruit trees. So 

 it is not strange that it is subject to injury from many 

 enemies, especially parasitic fungi and insects of several 

 kinds. The precise causes of two of the most destructive 

 diseases, however, have yet to be determined. Peach 

 Yellows has caused the destruction of numberless or- 

 chards, and the Peach Rosette in certain southern states 

 has been locally injurious. Both are known to be con- 

 tagious, but the organisms producing them have not yet 

 been isolated. 



Peach trees affected by the Yellows disease send out 

 slender yellowish shoots very early in spring, these some- 

 times taking on a brush-like appearance because so many 

 grow in a cluster. Later in the season the fruit ripens 

 prematurely, is of inferior quality, and bears charac- 

 teristic red spots on its surface, the red marking extending 

 into the flesh. While only a branch or two may be 

 affected at first, the disease spreads until it kills the 

 whole tree. No remedy is known, the only treatment 

 being to remove and burn the tree, root and branch, and 

 set a new one in its place. Fortunately the disease does 

 not inoculate the soil so that the new tree is in no greater 

 danger from Yellows than the trees set in other places 

 in the neighborhood. 



Peach Rosette appears to be a sort of acute form of 



