The fruit-tree bark-beetle (Eccoptogaster rugulosus Ratzeburg), known in New York as the shot-hole borer, is often a serious menace to old or decrepit peach-trees. The beetle is a small, cylindrical insect an eighth of an inch long, one-third as wide, the body uniformly black and the surface closely and deeply pitted and punctured, the punctures on the wing-covers arranged in rows. Injury to the peach by this insect is first indicated by exudation of gum from trunk and branches and later by numerous small, round holes as if the tree had been struck by shot. Healthy, vigorous trees are seldom attacked and if so the larvae do not develop, but a peach-tree suffering a decline from any cause whatsoever is open to immediate attack and once the pest gains foothold the plant is doomed. Here, indeed, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, for keeping the orchard constantly in healthy, vigorous condition to avoid accidental introduction, and prompt removal and destruction of infested trees, both preventive measures, constitute the only satisfactory treatment.
The peach twig-borer (Anarsia lineatella Zell.) imported from Europe, has at times been a troublesome pest of the peach in parts of the United States but causes little injury in New York. Still, it can be found every year in nearly every peach-district in the State and needs, therefore, to be guarded against since it may some time appear in sufficient numbers to become formidable. The adult is a moth the larva of which is about one-half inch long, pinkish in color. This larva is the borer and in early spring attacks tender shoots boring down into the pith. It passes from one succulent shoot to another so that often many wilted shoots may be examined before the borer is found. Fortunately peach-trees send out shoots about as rapidly as this pest can destroy them so that in New York, at least, unless the tree is much weakened in vitality, not much harm is done. The twig-borer has small chance in a well-kept orchard, but, should it attain headway, prompt treatment with arsenate of lead will at once cut short its career.
Occasionally complaints come that the common rose-bug or rose-chafer (Macrodactylus subspinosus Fabricius) is at work on the peach. Leaves, flowers and fruits are eaten. The fuzz on the epidermis of the fruit is a deterrent but once a beetle gets through into the flesh, a dozen more join in the banquet and the peach is quickly ruined. Now and then one hears of a crop destroyed by the beetle. Insecticides seldom avail, for the insects are very resistant to poisons. The insects breed only in waste places and hence they may be looked for in the orchards of the sloven or where slovenly kept fields adjoin. Cultivation and sanitation are, then, the preventives. In New York rose-bugs are abundant only in warm, sandy soils.
CHAPTER V
LEADING VARIETIES OF PEACHES
ADMIRAL DEWEY
1. Ga. Sta. Bul. 42:232. 1898. 2. Mich. Sta. Sp. Bul. 30:14. 1905. 3. Albertson-Hobbs Cat. 29. 1906.
Admiral. 4. Budd-Hansen Am. Hort. Man. 2:335. 1903.
Dewey. 5. Am. Pom. Soc. Cat. 36. 1909. 6. Waugh Am. Peach Orch. 201. 1913.
Perhaps the peach most of all desired nowadays by peach-growers is a very early, yellow-fleshed freestone. For years Admiral Dewey and Triumph, both seedlings of Alexander, have been grown to fill this place and both, in the main, fail. Admiral Dewey, while early, yellow in flesh and good in quality, is not always a freestone and has several other defects which make it nearly worthless as a commercial fruit. Thus, though the trees are very productive, the peaches run small, are so heavily pubescent as to be unattractive, are very susceptible to brown-rot and are often disfigured with the peach-scab. The trees, too, suffer much from leaf-curl. With Alexander as the parent, the trees should be hardy, and from behavior elsewhere, must be so rated; but they have not proved exceptionally so on our grounds. While nowhere largely planted, Admiral Dewey is often set, as no doubt it should be, for an early peach in the home orchard. Of the two early sorts, this variety stands shipment rather better than Triumph. The varieties are of about the same season, both coming a week or thereabouts later than the well-known Alexander.
Admiral Dewey was grown from a seed of Alexander by J. D. Husted, Vineyard, Georgia, in the latter part of the Nineteenth Century. It was introduced in 1899 by Mr. Husted and has since been grown commercially east and west, north and south. The American Pomological Society placed the variety on its fruit-list in 1909 as Dewey but the full name bestowed to commemorate the great Admiral should, we think, be retained.
