8 THE PEACH 



one to two feet and over in diameter, and an age 

 of from fifty to one hundred years. The injuries 

 caused by the Peach borer and small insects that 

 infest the bark and the leaves are mythical in com- 

 parison with the " yellows," a disease from which 

 it has been said none survive. The borer for a long 

 time was considered the active agent in causing the 

 yellows. This opinion however has been long since 

 exploded. His sharp cuttin g mandibles are as clear 

 of communicating disease as the clean steel of the 

 sharp instrument that follows him witli unerring 

 fatality to his rather insecure quarters at the root of 

 the tree. The borer-has been long enough the scape 

 goat for the true " murderer," and although he is 

 a most audacious sneak thief to the peach orchard, 

 he carries no contagion or infection with him in his 

 depredations in supplying his wants and gratifying 

 his appetite. lie makes no effort to escape our- 

 vigilance, but is always found at the scene of his 

 depredations, and is as easily captured in Pennsyl- 

 vania as in the great peach centres in Delaware and 

 Maryland, the fields of his greatest success. In 

 healthy and unhealthy districts as well as in healthy 

 and unhealthy trees the borer is found and no place 

 escapes him. He has no East, no West, no North 

 no South he is the autocrat of his empire eating 

 out the substance of his people. 



We will here for the present knowing his haunts 

 and how to counteract and prevent his depredations 

 leave him and turn our attention to the greater evil 



