74 THE CULTIVATION OF THE 



come from spontaneous generation, in my opinion, I am 

 no believer in spontaneous generation. In this day of 

 doubt and trial I say this most emphatically. I see God 

 in nature everywhere, from the inception of this micro- 

 scopic ultimate atom, to the grand creation of Man — 

 mysterious, wonderful, and complex in being. These 

 bacteria act as organic ferments, (like the torulae, the 

 fungi of yeast,) and are, probably the means, or chief 

 means, of changing starch into sugar in the tree, etc., 

 provided they exist in normal and healthy numbers. 

 Now, from any cause let these bacteria increase a million 

 fold or more, as they may rapidly do, then they become 

 a source of disease, and here, to my mind, we have the 

 cause of Yellows in the peach. I might write pages 

 about these low orders of life, vegetable and animal, yet 

 only weary the reader, and in the end say no more to 

 the point than I have said. These bacteria which I say 

 do exist in healthy trees, becoming increased indefinitely, 

 cause disease. The nutrition of the tree is seriously 

 interfered with, or ceases altogether, because the cell- 

 action is checked or stopped ; the change of starch into 

 sugar is checked or stopped. All these being checked 

 means a diseased tree ; all these being stopped means a 

 dead tree — the cessation of cell-action. These changes 

 may occur suddenly, and we have acute or rapid 

 Yellows, the tree soon dying, Should these changes 

 occur less suddenly, we have chronic or slow Yellows, 



