24 THE PEACH 



seize on its new victim, is in effect courting failure. 

 Indeed, even about modern houses, where but few 

 trees have been planted, in nine cases out of ten, 

 where a new tree is introduced, you will find two 

 or three in the neighborhood perhaps in the last 

 stages of disease, and through their poisonous con- 

 tagion, or sporadic infection, if left in the ground, 

 they will inoculate your young trees with disease 

 the first season. To renovate the soil we must use 

 caustic or quick lime, wood ashes, guano, poudrette 

 or other alkalies, in sufficient quantity to destroy 

 or neutralize the active agent in the soil, ready at 

 all times to commit its ravages on the young trees 

 its natural food and with this precaution, all 

 trees affected by the yellows, which, from my de- 

 scription under the proper heading, may be recog- 

 nized, must be removed, body and branch, and 

 the earth renovated before replacing it with a young 

 tree. In rejecting all the kind counsels of my 

 friends, and feeling that I could bear the jocular re- 

 marks of others, I set myself to work, taking up 

 everything that I could get my hands on, touching 

 the subject of the disease of the tree, the only 

 thing that could interfere to prevent my success. 

 From my schooling in the orchard, in boyhood, 

 knowing the routine of peach growing, in a rough 

 way, having occasionally visited the mammoth or- 

 chards at Delaware city, and below, I had but one 

 point in the whole field of peach growing to exam- 

 ine, and that was to find a preventative, or at least a 



