PEACH AND THE PEAR, 75 



and then the tree declines and gradually dies, consuming 

 in the act of dying one or more years, very similar to a 

 sorry victim of consumption among men. I believe 

 Yellows to be a disease of the budded tree, a disease of 

 progress and civilization, as it were, among trees, a 

 disease that exists only among trees crowded together 

 with improper treatment and cultivation, just as diseases 

 from the same cause (zymotic or fermentive diseases) 

 are developed in man, when he is thrown together in 

 gregarious masses, without proper hygienic and dietetic 

 supervision. In man we have fevers, cholera, measles 

 and other horrors, and in the peach. Yellows and other 

 troubles, and in the pear, blight, and so on through 

 nature. I have seen Yellows in the natural tree. The 

 natural tree may get the Yellows because it is a peach, 

 but is not so likely to suffer from it — just as the primitive 

 man did not probably have cholera or zymotic fevers or 

 measles. Neither inherited the tendencies from their 

 progenitors, nor were the germs active, if present, nor 

 were they surrounded by the luxuries of an advanced 

 civilization to the degree of the modern man, or the 

 budded peach, and for these reasons, as we see from 

 observation in life, generally, where there is high 

 development and high culture of the animal or veget- 

 able, it is more obnoxious to disease. I incline to the 

 opinion from practical, and not as yet from scientific, 

 data, that Peach- Yellows is contagious, and can be 



