I cut away to-day the last of the peach trees I held to be of priceless value, the seedling October Clings, that have borne crops of ample proportions from 1868 to 1883, failing last year completely. This one tree has a cross section of II inches, 2 feet from the surface, and its largest branch a diameter of 7 inches, 10 feet from the ground. Its spread was 14 to 18 feet east and south, and about 28 feet in height. There were five of these great fruited October Clings, almost equal in size, and for twelve years bearing three to six bushels each - this one, more on several occasions. All were seedlings of a fine basket of late peaches planted in 1865. This tree never showed the cluster growth of feeble side shoots, nor ever bore a sickly peach. It died slowly, a grim, but useless resistance to this deadly yellows.

I see Prof. Penhallow's paper in the State report for 1883, full, but not quite satisfactory as an explanation, but better as a description of the progress of the peach-killing disease called the yellows. I believe that an ample supply of wood ashes would have done good in the early stages, but muriate of potash does not assimilate until chemically disintegrated. I have tried in vain to get wood ashes, and have not therefore given that method a trial. I kept peach trees in vigor on my farm for fifty years after their planting in 1816, by ample dressing of wood ashes twice a year; but they were not the giant trees that grow in this climate, nor even their crops more than a bushel to a tree. I never expect to see such trees or crops again as mine here gave me from 1869 to 1881. They were in abundant bearing at three years from the seed, and they yielded thirty to fifty bushels at the lowest, yearly, for twenty-five to thirty trees. I was confident that fertilization by ordinary methods would save them, but it did not, and I have cut up their saw-log trunks at intervals for the past year.

Philadelphia, March 25th.

[A very interesting communication as showing that the peach tree at any age, or under any circumstances, is liable to "Yellows." As Mr. B. remarks, Professor Penhallow's excellent paper is not wholly satisfactory. The " yellows" is believed to arise from a want of potash in the soil, as we understand, because the wood of such trees shows a deficiency in the quantity found in a healthy tree. That Prof. P. is correct in his diagnoses no one who knows the care and patient investigation he gives to any topic he takes up for investigation will for a moment doubt; but those of us who have had a wide experience know that the yellows often appears in soils that abound in potash; either the mineral potash that abounds in feldspathic soils, or that derived from former vegetable organisms. Indeed, the surest road to the yellows is to plant a peach tree near an old wood pile or in a piece of recently cleared forest ground. It seems to us that the deficiency noted by Prof. Penhallow in diseased wood comes from the inability of the tree, from the disease, to make use of potash, rather than from its absence in the soil.

The "yellows" in fact is a case of vegetable indigestion. - Ed. G. M].