PEACH AND THE PEAR. 97 



it has done damag-e to the trees or to the fruit. Like 

 the yellows, it is probably bacterial in its origin, and is 

 most apt to come where the trees are on wet, heavy land, 

 and in warm, wet seasons. It comes in May, generally, 

 or in June. The leaves swell and curl and are thick with 

 puffs of a reddish color on the upper side, and of course 

 the opposite side follows the puff, and is hollow. They 

 drop off in about three weeks and new leaves come and 

 take their places, and the tree apparenrly forgets the 

 trifling annoyance. Under draining and surface draining 

 and proper culture will eradicate, in a great measure, this 

 trouble. As we most frequently see curled leaf after a 

 warm, wet spell followed by clearing, cooling weather, I 

 venture the conjecture that it is caused by a fermenta- 

 tion in the leaf during the phases of the starch changing 

 to sugar, caused by the increased presence of bacteria 

 which revel and increase prodigiously in just such 

 changes of temperature. This fermentation causes the 

 curl and death of the leaf. 



THE JUNE DROP. 



After the young peaches have well formed on the 

 trees and are ready to start on their voyage to ripening, 

 nature comes in, and here in a very marked manner 

 asserts her sway in declaring that only the fittest shall 

 survive, and hence, all those specimens of fruit that have 

 not the perfect form of health, those specimens in which 

 the early germ was in any way deteriorated by disease 

 7 



