Peach-growers to whom this cost sheet has been submitted say 88 cents is too high a cost for producing a bushel of peaches but asked to consider the several items agree that most of them are too low. No doubt few who figure the cost of production include the item of superintendency which increases the cost for each bushel 20 cents. So, too, the average yield given is considered high. Granting that they may be high, all of the figures are permitted to stand, on the theory that the yield bears a close relationship to the expense of production--increased costs stand for increased yields. In tabulations of this kind much is usually made of the cost of bringing the orchard in bearing. In this calculation the high charge of investment goes to cover the cost of the first five years, the period of incubation, so to speak, and it is certain that this, with the sale of inter-crops, covers all expenditures for the first five years. DISEASES OF THE PEACH The peach is attacked by a half-score or more diseases in New York, two of which, yellows and little-peach, have this fruit quite at their mercy, there being no preventive, antidote, nor means of alleviation for either. Two other diseases, brown-rot and leaf-curl, are always present and often bring disaster, their virulency depending on locality, season, weather and variety, but both are amenable to treatment and at most destroy only foliage and fruit, while yellows and little-peach take their toll in trees. The several other diseases to be discussed are either easily controlled or are of minor importance. Yellows is a malignant disease or condition of the peach, very contagious, usually virulent, of which we know neither cause, origin nor cure. We know only its unmistakable symptoms, its terrible consequences. The history of yellows, the circumstances of its coming and its effects have been given in a foregoing chapter so that we need to discuss now only the symptoms and means of preventing the direct results of the disease. In its later stages the symptoms are characteristic enough and cannot be confounded with those of any other malady or condition of the tree. The marks of yellows are: (1) Premature ripening of the fruit accompanied by red blotches over the surface and red streaks running through the flesh; (2) premature unfolding of leaf-buds into willowy growths of tips and the production of shoots upon the trunk or main branches with growths developing into bunchy tufts of yellow or reddish foliage; (3) total discoloration of the foliage.