254 Ageicultueal Exi'Eeiment Station, Ithaca, N. Y. 



All this is what the botanist would have expected. It is well known 

 that plants store up starchy matters in their bulbs or branches to be 

 used in the growth of the adjacent parts in early spring. The earliest 

 bloom of spring is supported by this store of nutriment, rather than by 

 food freshly appropriated from the soil. This is well illustrated by 

 placing well matured twigs of apple or willow in vases of water in 

 winter, when the buds will burst and flowers will often appear. It was 

 admirably enforced by a simple experiment which we made last winter 

 in connection with this inquiry, and which is illustrated in the engrav- 

 ing upon the cover. On the fifteenth of February, a branch of a nec- 

 tarine tree which stood alongside the horticultural laboiatory was 

 drawn into the ofiice through a window. This office was maintained at 

 the temperature of a living room. On the 6th of April the buds 

 began to swell, and the young leaves had reached a length of three- 

 fourths inch a week later. The leaves finally attained their full size 

 upon this branch, before the buds upon the remaining portion of the 

 plant had begun to swell. This condition is shown in the illustration. 

 This experiment is by no means a novel one, for essentially the same 

 thing has heretofore been accomplished with the vine and other plants; 

 but it must impress upon the reader the fact that much of the bursting 

 vegetation of springtime is supported by a local store of nutriment, 

 and is more or less independent of root action. 



These various experiments and observations show that a mulch 

 can retard flowers and fruit only when it covers the top of the 

 plant as well as the soil. If the ground could be kept frozen for 

 a sufiiciently long period after vegetation begins, the plant would 

 consume its supply of stored food and might then be checked from 

 inactivity of the root, but this would evidently be at the expense of 

 injury to the plant; but, in practice, it is fortunately impossible to hold 

 the frost in the soil so long. It is evident, too, that the covering of 

 strawberries and other low plants for the purpose of retarding fruit, 

 must be practiced with caution, for a mulch of sufficient depth to 

 measurably delay vegetation is apt to bleach and injure the young 

 growth, and to lessen the crop. Yet it can sometimes be used to good 

 effect, and fruiting can be delayed a week, perhaps even more. I have 

 obtained the experience of various horticulturists in mulching straw- 

 berries to retard bloom and fruit. 



C. E. Chapman, Peruville, Tompkins cmmty, Nl Y.,Ji7ids mulching 

 profitable in retarding straioberries. 

 Because of late spring frosts and the glut of fruit from near Cayuga 

 lake, which is ten days earlier, I was compelled to grow late fruit or 



