158 FRUIT-GROWING 



peach orchard should be of a sort that do not 

 require cultivation late in the season as it is 

 desirable that the trees have an opportunity to 

 ripen their wood and to become perfectly dor- 

 mant before winter sets in. For a long time it 

 was thought that growing potatoes in a peach 

 orchard produced the disease known as "yel- 

 lows." It has also been thought that yellows 

 and winter injury were related. Certain grow- 

 ers have felt that the digging of the potato crop 

 started the trees into active growth and at least 

 favored the occurrence of winter injury — or 

 yellows. All of which is more or less theory 

 but it is given here for what it is worth. 



The peach has numerous enemies both among 

 the insects and among the plant diseases, as 

 have nearly all plants that have been intro- 

 duced from other countries. The outstanding 

 insect enemy is the peach borer which has al- 

 ready been mentioned. It is the larva of a 

 rather pretty, clear-winged moth and does its 

 damage by eating a little subway for itself un- 

 der the bark of the tree — usually at or just be- 

 low the soil line. The eggs are laid any time 

 between the first of June and the last of Sep- 

 tember varying somewhat with the latitude. 

 Frequently several borers will appear in the 

 same tree and their enthusiastic feeding ex- 

 cursions may result in girdling the trunk. 

 When this happens the tree usually dies or 



