THE YELLOWS. 465 



The great abundance of this fruit caused it to find its way, 

 more or less into all the markets on the sea-coast. The stones of 

 the enfeebled southern trees were thus carried north, and, being es- 

 teemed by many better than those of home growth, were every 

 where more or less planted. They brought with them the en- 

 feebled and tainted constitution derived from the parent stock. 

 They reproduced almost always the same disease in the new soil, 

 and thus, little by little, the Yellows spread from its ori- 

 ginal neighborhood, below Philadelphia, to the whole northern 

 and eastern sections of the Union. At this moment it is slowly, 

 but gradually moving west ; though the rich and deep soils of the 

 western alluvial bottoms will, perhaps, for a considerable time, 

 even without care, overpower the original taint of the trees 

 and stones received from the east. 



Let us now look a little more closely into the nature of this 

 enfeebled state of the peach ^ree, which we call the Yellows. 



Every good gardener well knows that if he desires to raise a 

 healthy and vigorous seedling plant, he must select the seed 

 from a parent plant that is itself decidedly healthy. Lindley 

 justly and concisely remarks, " all seeds will not equally pro- 

 duce vigorous seedlings; but the healthiness of the new plant 

 will correspond with that of the seed from which it sprang. For 

 this reason it is not sufficient to sow a seed to obtain a given 

 plant ; but in all cases when any importance is attached to the 

 result, the plumpest and healthiest seeds should be selected, if 

 the greatest vigor is required in the seedling, and feeble or less 

 perfectly formed seeds, when it is desirable to check natural 

 luxuriance."* 



Again, Dr. Van Mons, whose experience in raising seedling 

 fruit trees was more extensive than that of any other man, de- 

 clares it as his opinion that the more frequently a tree is repro- 

 duced continuously from seed, the more feeble and short-lived is 

 the seedling produced. 



Still more, we all know that certain peculiarities of constitu- 

 tion, or habit, can be propagated by grafting, by slips, and even 

 by seeds. Thus the variegated foliage, which is a disease of 

 some sorts, is propagated for ever by budding, and the disposition 

 to mildew of some kinds of peaches, is continued almost always 

 in the seedlings. That the peach tree is peculiarly constant in 

 any constitutional variation, the Nectarine is a well known 

 proof. That fruit tree is only an accidental variety of the peach, 

 and yet it is continually reproduced with a smooth skin from 

 seed. 



Is it not evident, from these premises, that the constant sowing 

 of the seeds of an enfeebled stock of peaches would naturally 

 "produce a sickly and diseased race of trees. The seedlings 



* Theory of Horticulture 



