THE PEACH. 599 



We consider the contagious nature of this malady an unset- 

 tled point. Theoretically, we are disinclined to believe it, as we 

 know nothing- analogous to it in the vegetable kingdom. But 

 on the other hand, it would appear to be practically true, and 

 for all practical purposes we would base our advice upon the 

 supposition that the disease is contagious. For it is only in 

 those parts of the Atlantic States where eveiy vestige of a tree 

 showing the Yellows is immediately destroyed, that we have 

 seen a return of the normal health and longevity of the tree.'* 



Cause of the Yellows. No writer has yet ventured to assign 

 a theory, supported by any facts, which would explain the cause 

 of this malady. We therefore advance our opinion with some 

 diffidence, but yet not without much confidence in its truth. 



We believe the malady called the Yellows to be a constitu- 

 tional taint existing in many American varieties of the peach, 

 and produced, in the first place, by bad cultivation and the con- 

 sequent exhaustion arising from successive over-crops. After- 

 wards it has been established and perpetuated by sowing the 

 seeds of the enfeebled tree either to obtain varieties or for 

 stocks. 



Let us look for a moment into the history of the peach cul- 

 ture in the United States. For almost a hundred years after 

 this tree was introduced into this country it was largely culti- 

 vated, especially in Virginia, Maryland, and New Jersey, as we 

 have already stated, in perfect freedom from such disease, and 

 with the least possible care. The great natural fertility of the 

 soil was unexhausted, and the land occupied by orchards was 

 seldom or never cropped. Most of the soil of these States, 

 however, though at first naturally rich, was light and sand}', and 

 in course of time became comparatively exhausted. The peach 

 tree, always productive to an excess in this climate, in the im- 



* The following- extract from some remarks on the Yellows by that 

 careful observer, Noyes Darling, Esq., of iSTew Haven, Ct., we recommend 

 as worthy the attention of those who think the disease contagious. They 

 do not seem to indicate that the disease spreads from a given point of con- 

 tagion, but breaks out in spots. It is clear, to our mind, that in this, and 

 hundreds of other similar cases, the disease was inherent in the trees, they 

 being the seedlings of diseased parents. 



" "When the disease commences in a garden or orchard containing a con- 

 siderable number of trees, it does not attack all at once. It breaks out 

 in patches which are progressively enlarged, till eventually aU the trees 

 become victims to the malady. Thus in an orchard of two and a half 

 acres, all the trees were healthy in 1827. The next year two trees on 

 the west side of the orchard, within a rod of each other, took the Yellows. 

 In 1829, six trees on the east side of the orchard were attacked; five of 

 them standing within a circle of four rods diameter. A similar fact is now 

 apparent in my neighbourhood. A fine lot of 200 young trees, last year 

 in perfect health, now show disease in two spots near the opposite ends 

 of the lot, having exactly six diseased trees in each patch contiguous to 

 each other ; while all the other trees are free from any marks of disease." 

 — Cultivator. 



