PEACH AND THE PEAR. 59 



orchards, ^the Yellows has almost irwariably appeared 

 and destroyed, with ruthless hand, everything before it ; 

 and I have personally, particularly observed, that yet, 

 in this locality, peaches can be grown, if at all, only on 

 lands which have not received the heavy dressings 

 of lime and grain-fed manures, which have been so 

 generously applied to most of the fine farms in that 

 locality. I incline to think that we are reaching the 

 bottom of some of the peach troubles, and that this very 

 excellent fertilizer, barn-yard manure, causes directly, 

 or indirectly, the development of the germs or fungi 

 engaged in sapping the life of the Peach tree. If I am 

 right in my conjecture of this apparent effect from an 

 apparent cause, we will condemn, and ought to condemn, 

 the application of barn-yard manure in its usual form, to 

 the orchard, and condemn it on these empirical grounds 

 alone ; and I yet hope that this empiricism will soon be 

 supplanted by solid scientific fact. Of these matters we 

 shall speak again, when we come to consider the diseases 

 of the peach. Now, reasoning from a chemical stand- 

 point, we would say, apply 



LIME, 



and thus quicken the forces of decay, and destroy the 

 spores of the fungi which may come from the manure. 

 Practice has not shown that to be effectual, if trouble 

 comes from applying raw barn-yard manure, but on the 

 other hand, where they have been applied one with the 



