THE PEACH. 



591 



lect which allows them to fall a prey to the Peach-borer. Indeed the 

 frequency with which the Borer has been confounded with the Yellows 

 by ignorant observers, renders it much more difficult to arrive at any 

 correct conclusions respecting the contagious nature of the latter 

 disease.* 



It may be said, in objection to these views, that a disease which is only 

 an enfeeblement of the constitution of a tree, would not be sufficient to 

 alter so much its whole nature and duration as the Yellows has done that 

 of the peach. The answer to this is, that the debility produced in a 

 single generation of trees probably would not have led to such effects, 

 or to any settled form of constitutional disease. But it must be borne 

 in mind that the same bad management is to a great extent going on to 

 this day, the whole country over. Every year, in the month of August, 

 the season of early peaches, thousands of bushels of fruit, showing the 

 infallible symptoms of the Yellows, — a spotted skin, &c, — are exposed 

 and sold in the markets. Every year more or less of the stones of these 

 peaches are planted, to produce, in their turn, a generation of diseased 

 trees, and every successive generation is even more feeble and sickly 

 than the last ! Even in the North, so feeble has the stock become in 

 many places, that an excessive crop of fine fruit is but too frequently 

 followed by the Yellows. In this total absence of proper care in the 

 selection both of the seed and the trees, followed by equal negligence 

 of good cultivation, is it surprising that the peach has become a tree 

 comparatively difficult to preserve, and proverbially short-lived ? 



Abroad, it is well known that the peach is always subjected to a 

 regular system of pruning, and is never allowed to produce an over- 

 crop. It is not a little singular, both that the Yellows should never 

 have originated there, and that, notwithstanding the great number of 

 American varieties of this fruit that have been repeatedly sent to Eng- 

 land and are now growing there, the disease has never extended itself, 

 or been communicated to other trees, or even been recognized by English 

 or French horticulturists. We must confess, these facts appear to us 

 strong proofs in favor of our opinion as to the nature and origin of the 

 malady. 



Hemedy for the Yellows. It may seem to many persons a difficult 

 task to rid ourselves of so wide-spread a malady as this, yet we are con- 

 fident that a little perseverance and care will certainly accomplish it. 

 In the present uncertainty with regard to its contagious nature, it is 

 much the wisest to reject " the benefit of the doubt," and act upon the 

 principle that it is so. We know at the present moment several gardens 

 where the trees are maintained in good health by immediately rooting 

 out and destroying every tree as soon as it shows marked symptoms of 

 the malady. 



1. We would therefore commence by exterminating, root and branch, 

 every tree which has the Yellows. And another tree should not be 

 planted in the same spot without a lapse of several years, or a thorough 

 removal of the soil. 



2. The utmost care should be taken to select seeds for planting from 

 perfectly healthy trees. Nurserymen, to secure this, should gather them 



* All knowledge relating to the Yellows appears to us as much in obscurity 

 as when this was written. In our experience no one variety seems more liable 

 to be attacked than another, the most vigorous trees being as often affected as 

 those of moderate growth. — C. D. 



