SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL MEETING. 71 



their disaster a few years after Benton Harbor. The disease 

 continued to move to the northward and the writer witnessed 

 the serious outbreak in 1900-1903 in Oceana County, the 

 northernmost county, extensively planted to peaches. These 

 outbreaks in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York and Con- 

 necticut dated back for over 100 years. They have been fol- 

 lowed by periods of subsidence in the severity of the disease, 

 and there is a question as to whether this has not come in 

 most cases from nearly total destruction of the peach orchards 

 in the affected territory ; therefore, a lack of material on 

 which to work. 



JMethods of Control. 



There were mentions made in the early discussion of 

 peach yellows around Philadelphia of rooting out and de- 

 stroying the diseased trees. It seems to have occurred quite 

 generally to orchardists that this was a desirable thing to do. 

 It was also discussed and some eradication was done during 

 the outbreak which wiped out the orchards in Benton Har- 

 bor in the early seventies. The most decided step in introduc- 

 ing eradication, however, seems to have been made at South 

 Haven, IMichigan. A committee, appointed by the South Ha- 

 ven Pomological Society, reporting in 1874, stated that where 

 cases of yellows had been found in the orchards and promptly 

 removed two years before, none were then found, and where 

 new trees were planted in place of the diseased trees, they 

 were growing finely and seemed to be vigorous and healthy. 

 They further showed that it was impossible to cut off single 

 limbs affected by the disease, and that even where two af- 

 fected peaches were found on the end of a limb and that limb 

 removed, the yellows still persisted and destroyed the tree. 

 The South Haven Pomological Society seems to have been the 

 first organization to persistently advocate and promote eradi- 

 cation, and the results were watched with interest and were 

 in the main satisfactory around South Haven. Other districts 

 in Michigan took up this work, usually, however, after being 

 hard hit and partially or wholly wiped out by the disease, and 



