BULLETIN OF THE BUSSEY INSTITUTION. 9) 
more than thirty years old, was not in the least affected by any 
disease, so far as related to the wood. As this tree produced 
the best Rareripe peaches of any tree I had, for some years no 
other seed was planted except from this tree. After these seed- 
lings had come into bearing, the favorite tree, which was parent 
of these seedlings, together with all other trees of the Rareripe 
variety planted before the ‘ yellows’ were introduced, were de- 
stroyed to make room for building improvements. For several 
years the young orchard of seedlings from the favorite Rareripe 
produced large crops of excellent fruit. From this orchard one 
season [I planted a peck of pits, and not one germinated. At 
first I thought the soil was unfavorable, but the next year I had 
no better success, although the seed was planted in various soils. 
Afterwards I planted large quantities of pits, but did not succeed 
in getting a single tree. 
‘¢ A year or two after the seed failed to grow, I discovered that 
a few trees of this variety produced fruit that exhibited the first 
stages of the ‘ yellows.’ The next year all of the oldest of these 
cross-fertilized offspring of the Rareripe stock began to send out 
very fine twigs, the leaves became yellow and the fruit ripened 
before fully grown, and some of it decayed on the tree. Ina 
few years every tree died. Thus the variety called the ‘ Hersey 
Rareripe,’ so far as I know, has been lost. Evidently, the pollen 
from diseased trees had affected the fruit of the sound trees, and 
trees growing from this infected seed were congenitally diseased. 
‘¢The White Magdalene, on the contrary, has withstood all the 
vicissitudes of our climate, and has never been known to cross 
with any other variety; it remains essentially the same peach as 
regards form, color, and quality that it was a hundred and fifty 
years ago. ‘The seeds germinate as readily now as in former 
years. The twigs-are large, ripen well, and are rarely killed by 
cold weather. No tree of this variety has ever shown the least 
indication of the ‘ yellows,’ although some of them have been 
grown so near to trees that have died with the disease that the 
branches of the two sorts have intertwined. This experience 
leads to the conviction that the Hersey Rareripe might have been 
perpetuated if buds taken from trees grown from seeds produced 
before the introduction of the ‘ yellows’ had been set in Magdalene 
stocks. 
