AND ITS DISEASE. 91 



delphia, as reported by Judge Peters, Mr. Heston 

 and other peach growers of that day, and this 

 change they spoke of was that fatal disease the 

 yellows. It has continued its ravages on the 

 orchard with almost unremitted virulence ever 

 since, and owing to the disease, peach growers 

 were discouraged in extensive planting in Penn- 

 sylvania for market purposes. New Jersey, Dela- 

 ware and Maryland became the peach growing 

 regions to supply our markets, and for the last 

 fifty years the two last named States have enjoyed 

 an almost entire monopoly of the peach market in 

 Philadelphia and New York. Mr. Kutter next 

 treated of his successful system of peach growing 

 for years in Chester and Delaware counties, both 

 diseased districts and subject to the yellows, show- 

 ing that under his treatment peaches were grown 

 successfully, and more so than in the healthy dis- 

 tricts in Southern Maryland, and with much 

 greater profit to the producer. The yellows is a 

 specific disease affecting the peach, and the cause 

 assigned, and pretty generally now conceded, is a 

 parasitic fungi, and the remedies are found in 

 caustic alkalies. These remedies were elaborately 

 and exhaustively treated. He gave a chemical 

 analysis of the peach, apple and pear tree, showing 

 that the three great and leading elements were 

 lime, potash and phosphate of lime, and that the 

 fertilizing elements required for one were the 

 proper food for the others ; that two of these three 



