The Canadian Horticulturist. 313 



potash and 12 per cent, of phosphoric acid ; those diseased with yellows 30.76 

 per cent, of potash, and 16.86 per cent, of phosphoric acid. In all three cases 

 the diseased branches shewed a deficiency of lime as compared with the healthy • 

 in one case the difference being as great as 14.53 P er cent. 



It is not necessary to mention the treatment and results in each of the 

 fifteen orchards. They were all supplied separately or in combination with the 

 fertilizers above mentioned, some receiving moderate, and others large, quantities ; 

 to some trees applied in the spring, to others in the fall ; in some cases plowed 

 under, in others harrowed in ; but " these variations do not appear to have 

 sensibly modified the results." 



Of 645 trees afflicted with the yellows at the beginning of these experiments, 

 none recovered. A few improved so as to exhibit greener foliage and make more 

 growth than the like trees not treated, especially the tree that received a large 

 quantity of caustic lime, and those that were treated with tobacco dust and 

 nitrogen compounds. "The symptoms of disease, namely, premature fruit, pale- 

 branched shoots, and prematurely unfolding winter buds, did not disappear from 

 any of these trees ; the most that can be said is that they did not pass into the 

 final stunted and dying condition quite as rapidly." But even this poor satis- 

 faction was not to be had in the great majority of those that he tried to cure, 

 even when they were supplied with an overflowing abundance of wood ashes, 

 potash salts, and high grade superphosphates. 



Various preventive treatments were tried on about 3,800 healthy trees, 

 which were in fine condition. Many of these were treated three and four times, 

 yet at the end of the third season 1,741 of them had the yellows, and at the 

 end of the fourth season 2,368, which is over sixty per cent, of them, were 

 diseased. The number of these trees shewing the yellows increased with each 

 succeeding season, being greater the second and third season than the first, and 

 still greater at the end of the fourth. In three large orchards the treated portions 

 as a whole developed more cases than the untreated in a given time, and this is 

 especially noticeable in the orchard where the Goessmann-Penhallow mixture 

 was tried for a long time and on a large scale." 



We seem to have learned from these experiments which were continued 

 for four years, that the addition of the fertilizers mentioned, in either large or 

 small quantities, separately or in combination, will -not prevent peach yellows, 

 nor cure the disease when once begun. We may, therefore, presume that the 

 cause of peach yellows is not to be traced to any want of proper peach tree 

 food in the soil. It can hardly be said that these conclusions are very encourag- 

 ing to the peach orchardist. They do not seem to throw any light on the means 

 of preventing or curing this most serious disease. The results are wholly 

 negative. We need not waste our energies on soil applications of the nature of 

 fertilizers in the vain expectation of thereby being able to preserve our peach 

 orchards. This much these experiments seem to prove. We need no longer 

 to look in this direction, and may turn our investigations into other channels in 

 the hope that patient study of these may yet disclose some mode of prevention 

 or cure. I). W. Beadle. 



4JO Markham St., Toronto. 



