Chapter V. 



DISEASES AND ENEMIES OF THE PEACH. 



YELLOWS. 



I believe that Yellows is a bacterial disease, as is 

 now understood. I believe these bacteria exist in the 

 healthy tree and even in healthy men, but when their 

 number becomes greatly increased, which may take 

 place rapidly under favorable circumstances to an 

 infinitesimal number, they become a disease. They, 

 we are taught to believe, develope into fungi, (mushroom 

 growths,) probably through Mycelia (the spawn of fungi.) 

 Bacteria are monads, (monads are ultimate atoms, a 

 primary division of matter,) having a low, vegetable 

 life, and are liable to appear in any substance containing 

 life. They are of different forms, and move actively, and 

 are, of course, microscopic. They probably act as 

 ferments, as in the vegetable-cells in the transformation 

 of starch into sugar. They come from the air, where, 

 probably, their origin is suspended, and with a certain 

 development, which the microscope has not yet dis- 

 covered, before they can act as a ferment in health and 

 disease, either in animal or vegetable life. They do not 



