THE PEACHES OF NEW YORK 127 



Allegan County, north of Van Buren, along the lake shore at least, 

 stiff ered from yellows rather less, though nearly as badly as the region to 

 the south. The disease was less and less virulent as the peach-belt extends 

 northward. At Traverse City, the most northern point in the peach- 

 belt, yellows has never been epidemic. Passing eastward, the disease 

 appeared about Grand Rapids, the center of peach-culture in Kent County, 

 in 1883 and in the decade that followed took from peach-growers the toll 

 usual in western Michigan. Eastward from Kent County, however, in the 

 several small and rather isolated cases of peach-growing yellows either has 

 not appeared or has been an unimportant factor. 



The lowest ebb in Michigan orchards from yellows was reached in the 

 eighties after which new plantings increased remarkably, the number of 

 bearing trees in 1889 being but 1,919,104 and in 1899, 8,104,415. The 

 disease still persists in Michigan wherever in former times it became 

 established. Yellows seems, however, to have lost much of its old time 

 virtilency; or, perhaps, the fact that peach-growers are more prompt and 

 thorough in destroying diseased trees accounts for the decrease of the 

 disease. Then, too, the Michigan peach-belt has had the bitter experi- 

 ence in the last decade or two, of several winter freezes which have wiped 

 out whole orchards, discouraged many planters, and, together with the 

 keen competition of new peach-regions, reduced the size of orchards and 

 scattered the plantations so that, in the lessened communal intensity, 

 yellows has less opportunity. 



Going back, now, to the place of first infection and passing southward, 

 we find that yellows, though not more virulent in Delaware than in Michigan, 

 was much more devastating. Destruction is the only efficient method in 

 treating yellows. The necessity of this drastic measure has been pro- 

 claimed by every authority from Judge Peters, discover of yellows, down. 

 The strong arm of the law in many states enforces destruction. In Dela- 

 ware, however, growers were more dilatory in destroying yellows-trees 

 than elsewhere — in fact for the first half-century made little attempt 

 so to check the disease. When the scales fell from the eyes of orchard- 

 owners in this State the industry was already ruined. From hundreds of 

 accounts, the ups and downs of peach-growing in Delaware as caused 

 by yellows may be shown by a few brief statements. 



The peach-industry began in Delaware about 1830 and there are few 

 references to peach-yellows until a decade or two after that time, though 

 Dr. John J. Black says that the disease had been known in the State " since 



