104 Wisconsin State Horticultural Society. 



fruits. Currants, gooseberries and raspberries were profusely 

 abundant, making prices correspondingly low. The crop of straw- 

 berries was unusually large, and consequently sold at uncommonly 

 low prices, being sold in Milwaukee at the remarkable low price of 

 from 3 to -4 cents per quart. 



A singular feature developed in the season was that the hardiest 

 things suffered most. This was most noticeable in crab apples and 

 wild plums, and I think was due only to the fact that these kinds 

 started earlier and were more advanced at the time of injury. Some 

 name blight, mildew, etc., as being active agents in causing the 

 present bad health of our trees, but I think that if there had been 

 no freezing, there would have been no foothold for these lesser 

 evils; for never did trees commence to bud with greater promise 

 of health and fruitfulness. Perhaps this was needed to complete 

 our list of experiences, but as it has been thirty years in coming, 

 so may it be thirty more, or twice that, to the next. Taking all 

 the facts together, we should find no fault with the fruit we have 

 received, as tne deficiency in the apple crop has been largely made 

 up by the profusion of small fruits. 



Report of First district, continued. 



G. P. PEFFER, PEWAUKEE. 



In no season, except that of 18-46, for thirty -seven years, which 

 is as far back as I can recollect, have we had such peculiar and 

 varied conditions of weather, extending to over the whole year. 

 In 1846 we commenced working in the garden, sowing peas, plant- 

 ing onions, on the eleventh day of March. On the fifth of April 

 our grain was all in the ground, sweet corn, potatoes, squashes and 

 melons planted. That year melons were ripe on the fourth of July; 

 plums and peaches on the twelfth of August. In November of 

 1816 there was some freezing weather, but it came off warm, and 

 on Christmas day violets and daisies were in bloom in the garden, 

 the same as this year. The past winter was very much like 1846, 

 except less frost or cold weather in November. In fact, the whole 

 winter was almost without freezing weather. The spring was also 

 very favorable for early spring work. The season commenced four 

 or five weeks earlier than usual. Digging could have been done in 

 the nursery nearly all winter long, but we commenced digging trees 

 in the nursery on the eleventh of March, and our spring grain was 



