PEACHES. 365 



common peach stock. Thirdly. The Peach stock causes 

 the Peaches and Nectarines to grow too rapidly, making 

 very strono- shoots, these producing secondary or late 

 shoots ; and the fruit of the following summer is produced 

 on the tops of these lateral shoots, instead of being prc 

 duced on the principal or first shoots : this causes nake 

 wood at bottom, and a straggling unsightly tree, wnos 

 branches being heavy at top with the fruit, are brok. 

 down by high winds. Fourthly . In addition to all this, 

 the trees of late years are subject to what has been 

 deemed a disease called the yellows, from the circumstance 

 of the trees having a yellow sickly appearance ; much cu- 

 rious philosophy has been spent on this subject without ar- 

 riving at any satisfactory conclusion. I shall hazard an 

 opinion on the nature of this supposed disease, after stating 

 some observations I made on my young Peach Trees last 

 spring [1832] and the following summer. 



It will be recollected that the fall of 1831 was remark- 

 ably mild, and vegetation was prolonged to near the middle 

 of November ; at the end of that month and in the begin- 

 ning of December the cold weather set in very suddenly, 

 the thermometer gradually sinking until it fell below zero in 

 New-York, and to the north and east of us some eight or 

 ten degrees lower. To this sudden change of weather I at- 

 tribute the cause of so many young trees (and many old 

 trees too) being killed to the north and east of New- York, 

 particularly young Pears and Cherries. I lost a few Cherry 

 and Pear trees in places where they were most exposed. 

 The Peach trees in similar situations were not killed, but 

 many of them were injured, although it did not prevent 

 them from putting out their leaves, blossoming and bear- 

 ing fruit in the summer ; the leaves growing weakly, 

 and of a yellowish sickly appearance. In the spring, al- 

 though to all outward appearance the tree had sustained no 

 injury ; yet in cutting the shoots a blackness appeared in the 

 heart or medulla of the shoot : in some quite black, others 

 had black dots round, and in the pith. Some of these trees 

 I cut down to the budded part, and discovered that the same 

 blackness of medulla appeared in the main stem as were 

 in the smaller branches ; others that showed this character 

 I left standing : these put out their leaves, and ripened 

 their fruit prematurely, without having any thing of the 

 true flavour ; and what is remarkable, every diseased 

 tree, of whatever kind, seemed to bear the same red, and 

 red speckled, tasteless and insipid peach ; some of them 

 coming to maturity a month too soon. I have no doubt but, 

 31* 



