PEACH DISEASES. Among the most serious fungous troubles of the peach are the black spot and the brown or fruit rot. The black spot (01a dosporium carpoghilumt) causes dusky brown or black spots on the side of the fruit. These spots are individually seldom more than inch in di ameter, but by coalescence often injure a large area. The tissues underneath become affected and hard, and the peach lop-sided. often cracked. The brown rot (Monilia fructigena), which also attacks cherries and plums, causes the rotting of all these fruits as they are ripening, and is one of the most serious diseases to which they are subject. The affected fruits, which turn brown and appear decayed, soon become covered by an ash-colored coating of spores. The disease spreads rapidly, especially among early varieties. The twigs are also likely to be destroyed, and where the flowers are attacked, which evidence seems to show may happen, no fruit is set. These diseases may be largely prevented by thorough spraying with Bordeaux mixture. (See FuNw (IDE.) The fungicide should be diluted about one-third, because the foliage of the peach is very subject to injury from the copper com pounds used in spraying. One of the most in jurious fungous diseases of the peach tree and foliage is the leaf-curl, due to Exoo.seus dcfor mans. This fungus attacks the leaves, defoliating the tree. Its presence may be ascertained by the occurrence of reddish or yellowish blisters upon the leaves,whichbecome curled or crumpled. This disease is more prevalent in damp, foggy regions than in dry, airy ones. It can be pre vented by applying Bordeaux mixture of full strength to the trees before the buds begin to swell, followed after the leaves appear with a single application of the same fungicide, diluted as above. Two diseases of unknown cause are
peach rosette and yellows. In rosette the twigs are stunted and the leaves hunched in rosettes. It. is mostly confined to the South. The yellows is also shown in the appearance of the leaves. They are narrow, tufted. and of a yellowish color. The fruit ripens prematurely and is streaked through the flesh with red. Both of these diseases are contagious, and diseased trees should be dug out and burned as soon as dis covered. Badly infested regions have been rid of the disease in this way.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. For a classification of peaches Bibliography. For a classification of peaches see Price, The Peach (Texas Agricultural Ex perimental Station, Bulletin 39) ; Hume, _I Monograph of the Pccn-To Group of Peaches (Florida Agricultural Experimental Station, Bulletin 62) ; Powell, A Monograph of the Chi nese Cling Group (Delaware Agricultural Ex perimental Station, Bulletin 54) ; Could, Peach. Growing in. Maryland (Naryland Agricultural Experimental Station, Bulletin 72) ; Taft, Peach and Plum Growing in Michigan (=Michigan Agri cultural Experimental Station, Bulletin 103) ; Davis, Peach Growing in West Virginia (West Virginia Agricultural Experimental Station, Bul letin S2) : The Peach, Kansas State Horticul tural Society (Topeka, 1S99) ; Fulton, Peach Culture (New York, 189.9) ; Smith, Peach Grow ing for Market' (United States Department of Agriculture. Farmers' Bulletin No. 33). See PEACH INSECTS. See Colored Plate of DtturEs.