466 THE PEACH. 



will at first, often appear healthy, when the parent had been 

 only partially diseased, but the malady will sooner or later 

 show itself, and especially when the tree is allowed to produce 

 an over-crop. 



That poor soil, and over-bearing, will produce great debility in 

 any fruit tree, is too evident to need much illustration. Even 

 the apple, that hardiest orchard tree, requires a whole year to re- 

 cover from the exhaustion of its powers caused by a full crop. 

 The great natural luxuriance of the peach enables it to lay in new 

 fruit buds while the branches are still loaded with fruit, and 

 thus, except in strong soil, if left to itself it is soon enfeebled.* 



There are some facts, in our every day observation, which 

 may be adduced in proof of this theory. In the first place, 

 the varieties of this tree always most subject, to this disease 

 are the yellow peaches ; and they, it is well known, also produce 

 the heaviest crops. More than nine-tenths of the victims, when 

 the disease first appeared, were the yellow fleshed peaches. On 

 the other hand, the white fleshed kinds (those white and red e.\- 

 ternally) are much more rarely attacked ; in some parts of the 

 country never. They are generally less vigourous, and bear 

 more moderate crops. And it is well worth remarking that cer- 

 tain fine old sorts, the ends of the branches of which have a pe- 

 culiar, mildewed appearance, (such as the old Red Rareripe, the 

 Early Anne, &c.,) which seems to check the growth without im- 

 pairing the health, are rarely, if ever attacked by the Yellows. 

 Slow growing, and moderately productive sorts, like the Nut- 

 meg peaches, are almost entirely exempt. We know an orchard 

 in the adjoining county, where every tree has gradually died 

 with the Yellows, except one tree which stood in the centre. 

 It is the Red Nutmeg, and is still in full vigour. It is certainly 

 true that these sorts often decay and suddenly die, but we be- 

 lieve chiefly from the neglect which allows them to fall a prey 

 to the Peach Borer. Indeed the frequency with which the Borer 

 has been confounded with the Yellows by ignorant observers, 

 renders it much more difficult to arrive at any correct conclu- 

 sions respecting the contagious nature of the latter disease. 



It may be said, in objection to these views, that a disease which 

 is only an enfeeblement of the constitution of a tree, would not 

 be sufficient to alter so much its whole nature and duration as 

 the Yellows has done that of the peach. The answer to this is. 

 that the debility produced in a single generation of trees, proba- 

 bly would not have led to such effects, or to any settled form of 

 constitutional disease. But it must be borne in mind that the 

 same bad management is to a great extent going on to this day, 

 the whole country over. Every year, in the month of August, 



* The miserably enfeebled state of some kinds of p?ars on the sea-coast, arising 

 from unsuitable climate and the continual prop.igation by grafting from the r-uine 

 debilitated stock, is only a fair parallel to the Yellows in the peach tree. 



