CHARACTERISTICS OF THE DISEASE. 13 



it is a very marked feature, the skin being almost purple and the flesh 

 of the deepest crimson, even in pure white varieties. In an experience 

 covering four years and including a great many thousand trees dis- 

 eased by yellows, I have never known but one in which there was 

 entire absence of red spotting in the fruit. This tree bore premature, 

 insipid peaches and the characteristic shoots. The time of ripen- 

 ing also varies within wide limits. I have known such peaches to ripen 

 forty days in advance of the proper time, and also to ripen with the 

 healthy fruit or only a few days in advance. Generally they ripen two 

 or three weeks in advance and are gone when the healthy fruit matures. 

 In size the prematured fruit is usually normal the first season, and 

 sometimes even noticeably large and showy. If any is produced the 

 second year it is commonly small and inferior. The taste varies as 

 much as the color, running from tolerably good to mawkish or bitter. 

 Such fruits are generally insipid, even when of good size and color, 

 and their sale not only defrauds the consumer but also reacts upon the 

 grower, seriously impairing the subsequent demand for healthy fruit. 



In many cases the red-spotted, prematurely-ripened fruits are the first 

 indications of disease, or at least the first symptoms striking enough to 

 attract general attention. They are very often borne exclusively upon 

 one or two limbs of otherwise healthy-looking trees. These limbs are 

 not different in appearance from the rest of the tree. They bear vig- 

 orous shoots and full-grown, smooth, dark green foliage; often, also, 

 green half-grown fruits, which afterwards ripen in a normal manner. 

 There is no indication of disease except in the fruit, which, in color and 

 size, contrasts strikingly with the fine green foliage and the normal im- 

 mature fruit. Occasionally, in places, the foliage already begins to 

 look yellowish green, while weak, pale sprouts begin to push through 

 the bark. Sometimes branches bearing good foliage are covered from 

 ba&e to tip with these feeble shoots. They grow vertically through the 

 bark on the upper surface. Later, in summer or autumn, or the follow- 

 ing spring, such branches begin to show marked indications of disease. 

 The spring foliage is yellowish or reddish green, dwarfed, rolled, and 

 curled; and the shoot-axes are stunted. Commonly, especially in 

 moist seasons, many feeble branched sprouts are developed on the 

 trunk and the base of the main limbs. Again, stem and limb shoots 

 will grow normally and very vigorously for several feet and then all at 

 once branch repeatedly near the extremity in a very feeble and peculiar 

 way. Many of these growths are due to the excessive and abnormal 

 development of obscure buds hidden in the deeper layers of the bark 

 or developed from the cambium. Why they should germinate in such 

 numbers, and often in midsummer or autumn when the tree has passed 

 its period of active growth, remains to be explained. The appearance 

 suggests a profound disturbance of the distributive metabolism of the 

 plant followed by an equally profound distubance of the function of 

 assimilation. The branched character of many of the growths results 



