S. T. Maynard. Professor Maynard is the first experiment station officer to make careful tests of the relative efficiency of steam and hot water in heating greenhouses. His tests of last winter indicate that hot water is more economical and gives more uniform results with the heaters which he used. The tests have been repeated during the last winter with similar results. During a certain period, 6,598 lbs. of coal were used for the hot water heater and the average daily temperature was 49-74°- During the same time, the steam plant, heating a similar area, used 9,784 lbs. of coal and maintained a temperature of 48.390. It will probably be found eventually that a combined steam and hot water plant will be most satisfactory for many kinds of houses These experiments certainly show a superiority in hot water heating.

"Some Observations on Peach Yellows" are also presented in this bulletin. These observations possess unusual interest from the fact that so early as 1875 Professor Goessmann began experiments at the Massachusetts college upon yellows, and Professor Penhallow soon after made studies there in the same direction. These early investigations gave rise to a very general impression that the trees under experiment were not afflicted with the true yellows. Professor Maynard, "having the above trees under his care then and up to the present time, and having made a careful study of the peach for nearly twenty years, can say positively that many of the trees were badly diseased with the yellows, notwithstanding the statement by parties not conversant with the facts that it was doubtful if the true yellows had made its appearance in this section at that time. Many visitors familiar with the disease also pronounced it the typical yellows." The doubts concerning the affliction of these trees did not arise from any feeling that the experiments were ill-advised, but wholly from the fact that the descriptions of the disease in the College orchard did not seem to identify the disease as it exists in the great peach regions.

Professor Penhallow's characterization of the disease before the Massachusetts Horticultural Society in 1882, was wholly inadequate to a diagnosis. The characterization is condensed as follows: "We first of all observe a sickly yellow color in the leaves, which, later, generally extends to the branches, and thus gives to the entire tree the yellow color, on account of which the disease was very appropriately given the name it now bears. The fruit ripens prematurely (from two to four weeks before its season), often becomes abnormally velvety, possesses a high, unnatural color, which is usually likened to the hectic flush of a consumptive person, and has an insipid, unnatural flavor." Whatever may have been the ailment of the trees, this description is not characteristic of the yellows.

Steam vs. Hot Water.

Neither is Professor Maynard's characterization diagnostic. It is as follows: "1. A sickly yellowish-green color of the foliage. 2. Small leaves, often clustered and tinged with red, with a small amount of chlorophyll in the cells. 3. The new shoots are small and wiry, and grow in clusters or tufts, especially if they come out on the trunks or main branches. 4. The fruit ripens prematurely, is small and of a high color, and insipid or bitter to the taste. Trees may present the yellow, sickly appearance from want of food or from injury, but if the fine wiry shoots, the prematurely ripened, high colored and bitter fruit are present, the trees have the "yellows." The first symptom certainly conveys the idea that the first indication of yellows is a general yellowing of the whole foliage. As a matter of fact, this yellowness is usually a late symptom, and it rarely happens that the disease at once affects the foliage of the whole tree. The disease is usually first apparent in one or two portions of a tree, often in only a single fruit. The small leaves, " clustered and tinged with red" indicate general debility rather than yellows. The third symptom usually designates yellows, but the description of the "new shoots " is not full enough to be satisfactory.

The tendency of these adventitious shoots - if such shoots are meant - to branch the first year is one of the crucial tests of the disease. Premature fruit, "small and of a high color," is by no means characteristic of yellows. Many conditions may give such fruits. The diagnostic point in this connection is the presence of definite red spots or blotches upon the fruit, and these blotches extend into the flesh, and usually to the pit. These spots are conspicuous and characteristic, and they constitute the most important symptom for the determination of the disease. It is unusual, also, that yellows fruit is bitter until the disease is far progressed. But bitter fruits are often found upon debilitated trees.

Maynard on Peach Yellows.

We do not mention these points for the purpose of discrediting Professor Maynard's observations, but simply to show that more complete diagnoses must be made before peach growers can feel assured of results. The trees may have the yellows, but the description does not prove it. Professor Penhallow's description of the disease at Houghton Farm is no more characteristic, yet the trees must have had the yellows, for a visit to the Farm last summer revealed the fact that very few of the trees upon the place are alive, and these are in the last stages of true yellows.

Professor Maynard thinks that "the causes which are productive" of yellows are the following: insufficient food supply; too much nitrogenous manure applied late in the season ; injury by cold ; injury by borers; injuries by accident. It is even supposed that the breaking of the tissues or structure of the tree by frosts " in such manner that they cannot be repaired during the next season's growth," and which causes "dead places often on the trunk and main branches," may be productive of the disease. It is singular that so many of these old and loose notions should still be held to account for the disease, even indirectly. The experience of growers upon the new and fertile soils of the west proves beyond all cavil that trees upon the best soils and receiving the best of care, both in youth and age, in all seasons, in all treat-ments, are liable to the attack of yellows.

Professor Maynard has done a service in giving the behavior of trees in the college orchards, although we wish that the statements and discussions had been fuller. The observations suggest the old question in a new form, Does peach yellows behave differently in Massachusetts than in the large peach growing sections of the country ? It is not impossible that it may do so, and such records as this may bring out the facts. It is certain that the following observations will not apply to all parts of the country : "In the college orchard of some nine hundred trees, careful examination of all the trees was made during the past season. Of these; about fifty in different parts of the orchard gave unmistakable evidence of the 'yellows,' and in every case the trunks or main branches were found to be injured from 10 to 60 per cent. In no case could we find any indications of the disease where the branches or trunk were not injured in some way. The same disease, apparently, although we have made no careful study of the tissues, often destroys the wild cherry, the wild plum, the sweet birch (Betula lenta) and other trees".

The following conclusion is drawn: "While we do not know the exact nature of the disease called the 'yellows ' and cannot wholly control the atmospheric causes, the other causes we can largely control, and by careful cultivation in the spring and early summer only, by the use of complete fertilizers in the fall or early in the spring we can largely prevent this destructive disease. It may not be profitable to try to save diseased trees, and it would be advisable to destroy them as a matter of safety, although we have no evidence that the disease is contagious ; for upon the college grounds more or less diseased trees may be found at all times, and young trees are planted where old ones have died, and with an abundance of plant food, have grown in perfect health for six years."