18 PEACH YELLOWS. 



Of the entire 202 trees inoculated August 12, 1887, only 3 are now 

 living, and each of these is badly diseased and likely to die within 

 6 months. Of this experiment it may be said that all doubts con- 

 cerning the nature of the disease were long since set at rest. It has 

 corresponded exactly in manner of development and in results to the 

 disease in the trees from which the buds came. Exception must, of 

 course, be noted that none of these trees have ever borne fruit.* 



The virulent nature of the disease is shown by the fact that only one 

 or two buds, i. e., 1-2 square centimetres of diseased surface, were in. 

 serted into each tree. Its slow progress through the tissues is inferred 

 from the fact that no symptoms were visible until after 3 months 

 and probably none until the following May or June 8 to 9 months 

 after the date of inoculation. It should also be noted that the inserted 

 buds produced the same effect, although cut from many different trees. 



Experiment 2. The trees selected for this series of inoculations were 

 much like those used in Xo. 1. They were grown from Tennessee seed 

 and formed part of a large nursery owned by Thomas J. Shallcross, Lo- 

 cust Grove, Maryland. The seedlings numbered about 100,000, and were 

 very thrifty. I first saw them at budding time, when they were about 

 5 months old. The trees devoted to this experiment were two outer 

 rows, not different in appearance from the rest. 



The buds for inoculation were cut from an orchard on the same farm. 

 They came from healthy -looking shoots on a vigorous 6-year-old tree. 

 This tree had shown no symptoms of disease until that summer, when 

 some of its limbs bore premature fruit and the characteristic shoots. 



* So far as I know, the only well-authenticated case in which buds taken from a dis- 

 eased tree and inserted into a healthy stock have lived long enough and developed 

 vigorously enough to bear peaches, is one communicated by Prof. E. S. Goff, horti- 

 culturist of the State Experiment Station, Madison, Wisconsin. This experiment was 

 begun on the grounds of the Experiment Station at Geneva, New York, in 1886. Pro- 

 fessor GofPs statement from memory is as follows : 



"The tree budded was a very vigorous seedling of bearing size. In the latter part 

 of the summer in 1886, 1 budded several of the branches with buds of two (or three ?) 

 varieties of the peach, sent me by a young man of western New York whose orchard 

 was badly infested with yellows and who was deeply interested in the subject. He 

 assured me at the time that the buds came from diseased trees. 



"More than one-half the buds failed, but several survived and made a good growth 

 the following season, without exhibiting any abnormal appearance. The next season 

 (1888) the branches from the buds bore a good crop of fruit, and the peaches early 

 began to manifest a peculiar appearance, which I recognized from description as the 

 yellows. The ground of the fruit became a golden-yellow color, sprinkled and 

 blotched on the sunny side with very bright or sometimes with deep red. I am not 

 personally familiar with the yellows, having seen but a few trees affected with it, 

 but I came to the conclusion that the branches from the buds inserted into this tree 

 were attacked with the disease. I came away from Geneva in the spring of 1889, 

 and in the fall of that year, anxious to know what further symptoms this tree had 

 manifested, if any, I wrote to Mr. Churchill, who then had charge of the fruit trees, 

 and was informed by him that the tree had died." 



Dr. Collier, the present director of the Geneva Station, says that the tree was in an 

 exposed situation and died from an accidental injury. 



