No. 1, 



Disease in Peach Trees. — Hools — Pteriguim. 



31 



Disease in Peach Trees. 



Of late years, owing- to the appearance of 

 two diseases in our orchards, the peach has 

 become comparatively short-lived and unpro- 

 ductive. These diseases are yet scarcely at 

 all understood by the majority of cultivators. 

 We therefiire offer the following- suggestions, 

 with the knowledge, that if appreciated and 

 carried into practice, this fruit will be found 

 as healthy, tine and productive in our gar- 

 dens now, as at any previous period. 



1. The yellows is the greatest malady of 

 the peach. It affects the whole tree, and 

 the seedlings reared from it are also more or 

 less diseased in the same manner. 



2. The yellows is a contagious disease, 

 spreading- from tree to tree gradually, and 

 it may be propagated by grafting- or budding 

 from the infected specimens. 



3. The malady may be infallibly known 

 by the following- characteristics — a decided- 

 ly yellowish colour in the whole of the leaves 

 of the tree; short and slender branches grow- 

 ing here and there, clothed with small, half- 

 starved, narrow leaves, one fourth or one 

 half the usual size; and mottled, small fruit, 

 of inferior quality, ripening before the pro- 

 per season. 



4. A single tree, with this disease, will, 

 by its contagious influence, gradually de- 

 stroy a whole orchard of healthy trees. No 

 pruning, or mode of treatment iiitherto dis- 

 covered, will restore to a healthy state, a 

 tree thoroughly diseased with the yellows. 



5. It is absolutely necessary to destroy all 

 trees having the yellows, in order to insure 

 a sound condition in young plantations yet 

 healthy. In small gardens, where there are 

 diseased trees contiguous, the neighbours 

 must be prevailed upon to enter into the 

 plan. In farms and larger places, it will 

 generally be sufficient to destroy all victims 

 of the yellows on the premises, as the dis- 

 ease spreads slowly. In trees received from 

 nurseries, there will frequently be found an 

 infected subject, and it should be at once 

 rooted up, and its place supplied by a healthy 

 tree. It is much better to destroy a single 

 tree, though young, at once, than by allow- 

 ing it to stand, in the vain hope of its reco- 

 vering, to spread disease among all in its 

 neighbourhood. 



If we direct our attention to this matter, 

 we shall find in almost every neighbourhood, 

 a number of sickly and diseased trees, which 

 although worthless, are allowed still to oc- 

 cupy the ground. Very frequently an old 

 and favourite tree, now lean and jaundiced, 

 occupies year after year, a corner of the 

 garden, more from the recollection of the 

 fine fruit it once bore, than feom any present 



value. If we desire healthy and thriving 

 peach trees, all these diseased specimens, 

 old or young, must be entirely exterminated. 

 While these are allowed to stand in any 

 garden, disseminating a contagious disease 

 on every side, it is idle to hope for healthy 

 and long-lived trees. 



Tlie second enemy to this tree is the 

 peach worm or borer. This insect {JEgeria 

 exitiosa) deposits its eggs in the soft part of 

 the trunk, just at the surface of the ground. 

 These, on becoming borers or grubs, perfo- 

 rate and consume the bark, and in time gir- 

 dle and destroy the tree. To maintain an 

 orchard in good health, so far as regards this 

 insect, it is only necessary, every spring, to 

 remove the earth for three or four inches at 

 the base of the tree, and to cut out and de- 

 stroy with the knife every one of the borers. 

 Their presence is generally indicated by 

 gum just below the surface of the ground, 

 and a little practice will enable a man to go 

 over an orchard of an acre, in a day. 



The productiveness and longevity of the 

 peach tree will be greatly promoted by short- 

 ening or pruning the extremities of the 

 branches of bearing trees, from one to two 

 feet, in July, every year. This will keep 

 the tree full of bearing buds and healthy 

 wood. A. J. Do-WNING. 



From the Prairie Farmer. 

 The disease called Hooks—Pterigium. 



Mr. Editor, — In the April No., page 84, 

 there is an inquiry by A. Beach, for informa- 

 tion on the above disease — its nature, origin, 

 remedy, and whether or not it be contagious. 



The disease is not contagious. It has its 

 origin in a thickened condition of the white 

 coat of the eye-ball, {Tunica Sclerotica,) 

 just where the upper and lower eyelids meet 

 together in shutting the eye ; the pressure 

 of the lids and frequent winking, appear to 

 pinch up a small fold of said coat. Irritating 

 causes, by degrees, induce inflammation in 

 it, and the blood vessels which in health 

 carry only lymph or white blood, now be- 

 come enlarged and circulate red blood, and 

 appear fan-shaped, converging from the cor- 

 ner of the eye towards the pupil, and threat- 

 en to cover the glass of the eye {Cornea) 

 with a film. 



The only perfect or sure remedy for the 

 disease, when confirmed, consists in catch- 

 ing or hooking up this thickened mass of 

 vessels, on the point of a sharp hooked nee- 

 dle, (Tenaculum,) and cutting oft' the fold 

 thus hooked up with a pair of scissors, cut- 

 ting transversely, or across the vessels, until 

 all are divided. M, L. Knapp. 



April, 1843. 



