
          38

It is not clear, however, from anything in this paper
whether the disease in question was what we now know by this
name.  The probabilities, however, are strongly in favor of
it from the fact that it was a destructive malady not due to
borers, and from statements in papers published by others in
the years immediately following 1806.  Judge Peters was
president of the society, and a distinguished man.  His description
is vague enough.  He says: "About fifty years ago
[1760?], on the farm in Farimount Park on which I now reside [Belmont, now included in west part of Philadephia]. my father had a large
peach orchard, which yeilded [yielded] abundantly.  Until a general
catastropy bafell [befell] it, plentiful crops had been for many years
produced with little attention.  The trees began nearly at once to 
sicken, and finally perished. Whether by the wasp then undiscovered,
or by some change in our climate, I know not.
For forty years past, I have observed the peach tree in my
neighborhood to be short lived.  Farther south; in the
western country; and it seems in some parts of New Jersey,
they are durable and procuctive, as they had been formerly here."
He has two hundred peach trees of all ages, thirty-two varieties,
and says: "Mr. Coxe of Burlington, N.J., has double
that number."
        