which attacks the Peach tree. 211 



fruits are, none are equal to the peach in delicious flavor and 

 healthiness, and I should therefore be pleased to see this sub- 

 ject carefully investigated, and the experience of some of 

 your intelligent correspondents communicated through your 

 pages. 



And as I have, for about thirty years, occasionally had my 

 attention drawn to this subject, I am willing to throw in my 

 mite of experience. I am fully satisfied that the complaint 

 exists. Some persons say that the worm at the root is the 

 cause of the yellows. I acknowledge that any disorder that 

 destroys the trees will cause the leaves to turn yellow; but 

 the complaint I call the yellows will kill a whole orchard, 

 without any visible wounds, on or before the third or fourth 

 full crop. I think where any neighborhood abounds with 

 peach orchards, it will be nearly impossible to keep clear of 

 the disease. 



On planting out young peach trees on the site of a peach 

 nursery, two years after the nursery was removed, and al- 

 though the ground was in other respects well suited for the 

 growth of the peach tree, yet by the next autumn, many of 

 them were dead, and the balance so sickly that I had them all 

 dug up, and there was no sign of the worm at their roots. 

 From this, and other similar experiments, I think the disease 

 may be generated by planting in or near where a nursery or 

 orchard of peach trees has been, or where the latter is; con- 

 sequently, where a neighborhood abounds with peach trees, 

 there is danger of its becoming overspread with disease, with- 

 out greater care than is usually taken to prevent it. 



I think I have seen evidences of its being in some degree 

 contagious. Richard Cromwell, the respectable and worthy 

 peach raiser, near Baltimore, has for upwards of thirty years 

 supplied that city with peaches of the best quality, on a large 

 scale. Some time since, when I was walking with Mr. 

 Cromwell through his peach orchard, when the trees were 

 hanging full of ripe fruit, he pointed out a tree that he said 

 had the yellows, having a full crop upon it, at that time worth 

 one dollar per peck, and to me it appeared healthy; but he 

 observed to me, "as soon as I take the fruit from the tree, I 

 shall dig it up, in order to prevent the disease spreading any 

 farther, for 1 expect the side of the adjoining trees next to it 

 will be affected next season." I had occasion to pass through 

 Mr. Cromwell's orchard the next fruiting time, and the sickly 



