I20 THE PEACHES OF NEW YORK 



able foe, the disease I call the yellows. I obtain them from different 

 nurseries free from this pestiferous affection. The worm or wasp (.^geria) 

 I have in complete subjection. I should be perfectly disinterested in pro- 

 posing that the society offer a premium for preventing the disease so fatal; 

 for I shall never gain the reward." 



And again: ^ "I still think that the disease so generally fatal (more 

 so this year than any other in my memory), called the yellows, is atmos- 

 pherical. * * * Compare this account (of thrifty orchards in 

 Delaware) with the actual state of the peach in our country, and judge 

 whether we live in a region favorable to its growth. Mr. Heston's attempt 

 at cultivating this tree in the Southern manner begins already to fail. His 

 trees are evidently infected, and many are on the decline. The yellows are 

 universally prevalent this season throughout the whole country {i. e., 

 around Philadelphia)." 



We have given but little out of much that Judge Peters wrote on 

 yellows, his observations and experiences covering nearly a generation. 

 We have quoted sufficiently from his accounts, however, indubitably to 

 establish the fact that peach-yellows was rampant about Philadelphia at 

 least as early as 1800. Smith ^ puts the appearance of yellows in this 

 region as probably some time prior to 1791. By this time there was a 

 considerable body of scientific and practical agricultural literature in 

 America, and we may assume, since no trouble that could possibly be 

 identified as yellows had been described as existing elsewhere in America, 

 though the peach-borer is frequently discussed, that the disease at this 

 period, about 1800, was restricted to the neighborhood of Philadelphia. 



We now find the yellows gradually extending into neighboring states — 

 Delaware, New Jersey, Maryland and New York. Wm. Coxe of New 

 Jersey who in 1807 wrote Judge Peters, " I am perfectly ignorant of the 

 disease to which you give the name yellows," in 181 7 knew it only too well 

 as " a malady which no remedy can cure nor cultivation avert," and devotes 

 nearly two pages in his Fruit Trees to a discussion of its nature.^ Refer- 

 ences to yellows in all of the states named by this time had become general. 

 Our purpose to show the spread, effects, and early treatment of the disease 

 is fully served by quoting at length from a single author — a keen observer, 

 careful writer and the most notable horticultural and botanical authority 

 of his time, Wm. Prince, of Flushing, Long Island.* To Prince, by the 



■ Smith, Erwin F. U. S. D. A. Div. of Bot. Bui. No. 9:19. 1,888. 



^Ibid. 19. 1888. 



'Coxe, Wm. Cult. Fr. Trees 215-217. 1817. 



< Prince, Wm. Treat. Hort. 14, 15. 1828. 



