112 



ultimately fatal, may linger for long periods before final termination, 

 and observation has led to the conviction that such instances are by 

 no means rare. 



It may often be observed that in an orchard or plantation of trees of 

 any kind individual plants will suffer and show disease while closely 

 neighboring plants remain in perfect health. In such cases it will be 

 found that the injured plants are those which, for some reason, are the 

 most succulent of growths, and succumb to influences from which 

 those of mature growths are exempt, and thus " the one is taken and 

 the other left." 



The result of cold acting upon succulent shoots is well exemplified in 

 the case of peach trees. The disease known as " yellows " has long 

 been attributed by reliable authorities, and this on grounds which have 

 never been successfully controverted, to the freezing of immature 

 shoots in the fall. 



Downing, 40 years ago, in his " Fruits of America," referring to 

 peaches, says : 



And it is well worth remarking that certain fine old sorts, the ends of the branches 

 of which have a peculiar mildewed appearance, which seems to check the growth 

 without impairing the health, are rarely if ever attacked by the yellows. Slow- 

 growing and moderately productive sorts are almost entirely exempt. 



Again, on the same subject, he states 



The most luxuriant and healthy growing varieties appear most liable to it. Slow- 

 growing sorts are rarely affected. 



In Britain peaches are always grafted on plum stocks, which has a 

 somewhat similar effect upon the peach as that produced by grafting 

 the pear on the quince ; that is, the growth is checked, and succulent 

 late summer shoots prevented. 



The following extract from a late number of an English periodical 

 shows how the yellows in peaches is produced in that climate: 



I never had to deal with peach trees on peach stocks, but the history of the peach 

 stock is not favorable in some climates. The late Mr. Thompson, of the Chiswick 

 Gardens, relates how the trees on the peach stock at Chiswick ''invariably became 

 affected" and were done away with as useless. In America the peaches are on the 

 peach stock, and the trees perish wholesale from the same disease that attacked 

 them at Chiswick, viz, the yellows. 



If T could be sure of a blazing sun and long hot summers I would use the freest 

 growing stock I could get, but I am told that peach stock makes gross roots which 

 produce equally gross shoots that can not always be ripened here, even under glass, 

 and not at all out doors, and a foundation of ill-ripened wood is the beginning of 

 all evils. 



The following remarks are taken from a Maryland paper of date 

 November, 1870 : 



I am clearly of the opinion that the great drawback to the peach is that in many 

 places it has no chance to fully ripen its wood ; I mean that the trees grow so con- 

 tinuously, and sometimes very luxuriantly, until their foliage is suddenly destroyed 

 by frost. There is no gradual change of color in the foliage during autumn, followed 



