Principal Causes of Canker in Peaches, S^c. 603 



With all the washing and picking over, it was continually 

 smothered with the aphis of different kinds. After midsummer 

 many of the old branches died piecemeal; and the young wood that 

 the trees did make was j^oor, and much subject to the red spider 

 in the latter end of summer. In the course of about three years 

 after, every peach, nectarine, and apricot, except part of one old 

 Koyal George peach, was dead and gone. All the fault was laid 

 to the subsoil ; not the least idea, or the least remark, Avas ex- 

 pressed about the severe frost, only that it had killed all the furze 

 on the commons, almost every evergreen, and all the vegetables : 

 not so much as one cabbage or broccoli was left in the whole 

 garden. Time passed on, and I happened to be in practice in 

 different places. I was in the habit, for years, of going to see 

 every place of any note every opportunity I had ; and, in damp 

 foggy situations, I have often seen the waU trees very much 

 punished by the frost in the above-described manner. When 

 the winter of 1838 came it gave me an opportunity of observing 

 the effects more fully than heretofore ; for I believe it killed 

 thousands of Avail trees, and punished them so severely that they 

 have died a branch at a time since. 



On entering Bicton Gardens in 1840, where the frost had 

 not been so severe, I thought I never had beheld a finer lot of 

 peach, nectarine, and apricot trees, covering a large space of 

 wall. In January, 1841, we had three days of continued driv- 

 ing thick fog, like mizzling rain, the thermometer standing in 

 the day at 30° and at night at 28° ; so that every thing that 

 caught this driving south-east fog was glazed all over with ice. 

 The fog cleared off the third night ; the stars twinkled, and 

 there was 17° of frost at six o'clock the folloAving morning : the 

 sun rose bright and clear, and continued shining until noon. 



When pruning these poor trees in the spring, I had the mor- 

 tification of again seeing what I have before stated, viz., the 

 young wood full of spots. When the season advanced most of 

 the buds dropped off; the others opened very weak, the prin- 

 cipal falling off without setting any fruit ; and several of the 

 finest and most luxuriant trees actually died before the follow- 

 ing October. Some have died since ; others have lost large 

 branches ; and others again are full of those spots on the old 

 wood, Avhere it was exposed to the frost and sun, looking like 

 burnt places, the bark having been drawn away from the Avood, 

 and never adhering to it again. The plum stocks that many of 

 them Avere worked on did not suffer in the least, but filled the 

 ground with suckers all round, as far as the large roots ex- 

 tended ; and on taking them up I carefully examined them, and 

 found the roots sound and good ; full of strength and vigour. 

 The preparation made for them, and the subsoil too, are very 

 similar to Avhat I have before described ; lying very healthy 

 and dry, nothing, I think, can Avell be better. 



