
          <s>285</s>292

Douglas 2

With these preliminaries I wil [will] give such facts as I can bearing
directly on your inquiries.

1.  I do not know of any peach trees growing on plum Stock in all
this region.  I have lived here 20 years and have not known of
the planting of any such trees.  It has been a subject of conversation
among fruit men and nurserymen but never put in practice.
We have plum on peach Stock but no yellows has developed in such
trees.

2.  Yellows appeared here first in <s>1872 or 3</s>1873 or 4.*  In an orchard south
of mine about 2 miles one tree produced some beautiful red fruit.
No one knew the cause of the changed color.  This orchard contained
about 300 trees.  After this tree had borne such fruit a
year or two it was pronounced diseased with yellows.  The owner
refused to cut it down and in about 8 years all of his trees (300)
were dead by the effects of this contagious disease.  Two miles
east of mine another man found <s>3 or 4</s> 6 trees in his orchard of
<s>10000</s>4000* trees, the same year <s>1872 or 3</s>1873 or 4* which had the yellows.
He did not know the appearance of affected fruit and went to St.
JO. to learn what effect the yellows had on tree and fruit. He
cut down and dug out these trees, planted new trees in their place
which grew and bore fruit.  This orchard has suffered but little
from yellows.  My neighbor has about 3000 trees.  In the year
1878 I condemned 300 trees in his orchards.  He cut out all that
he found with marks of disease, but failed to find them all.
Since that year he has cut all condemned trees and for the last

[begin right margin text]
* In letter of May 5, 1888, in reply to my inquiries, Rev. J. F. Taylor authorized
me to change these figures to correspond with those given by the owner of
the orchard. See p. 336. [end right margin text]
        