THE DISEASES OF FRUITS. 



227 



and fertilizers do much toward removing the " starvation yel- 

 lows"; but such is not contagious. It goes without saying 

 that profitable peach growing is a high art that only the care- 

 ful student of the subject is able to understand. When the 

 genuine yellows is suspected, appeal should be made at once 

 to all the many sources of information upon the subject, and 

 even then the orchard may need to be destroyed for the sake 

 of future crops of peaches there and elsewhere in the neigh- 

 borhood. 



The Leaf Curl (Exoascus defer mans Fcl.) is perhaps the 

 most conspicuous of the well-established fungous diseases of 



PlG. 286. Branch of Peach, showing the Leaf Curl. 



the peach. The presence of this enemy is quicky recognized 

 by the distortions it causes in the foliage, some of the leaves 

 becoming highly colored, yellow and red (see Fig. 286). The 

 curl usually comes with the first leaves if it comes at all, and 

 in the worst cases all the foliage is affected and largely falls 

 away, as later leaves unfold. The fungus hibernates in the 



