STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 31 



the winter, the fruit tree blossoms were not fertilized as generally as 

 usual. He thinks, also, that the rain storms, which were so general while 

 orchards were in blossom, had the effect to blast the flowers. He further 

 writes : 



" I have noticed that soil not in cultivation has become diy very deep, while culti- 

 vated ground is more moist — even the road, with several inches of dust upon it, was 

 found moist below the dust, while at the roadside, where free from dust, it was dry for 

 one, two, or more feet. This seems to show the imperative need of cultivation." 

 [Mulching?— Ed.] 



" Fruit trees grown near timber, or surrounded by it, have suffered perceptibly less 

 than those grown in exposed locations. The extreme dryness of the summer has caused 

 death or severe injury to a large proportion of trees transplanted last spring ; there is 

 now — November — a great lack of water, compelling us to dig new wells or deepen the 

 old ones." 



Mr. Gove Wright, of Rock Falls, Whiteside county, contributes 

 the following : 



" The horticultural record for the year 1873 will, I think, show greater disasters to 

 trees and fruits than any written since the organization of this Society. The three 

 previous years of continued drought had exhausted the earth of moisture below the 

 reach of most fruit, ornamental and forest trees; the little rain we did have only stimu- 

 lated an unnatural and excessive growth of surface roots, which, like any surface 

 watering of plants in summer, rendered the trees unfit to endure the severity of last 

 winter's frost, or the drought of the present summer. These surface roots were, in 

 many instances, killed, while the lower roots, as well as the trunks and branches, were 

 uninjured ; but as these lower roots were situated in dry earth, they could furnish no sap 

 to sustain the life of the tree, and consequently, after putting forth a feeble growth of 

 leaves, and perhaps blossoms, from the sap stored in the trunk, it withered and died. 

 Perhaps my explanation is not very clear, but to my mind it is sufficient to account for a 

 singular fact which has been observed by many farmers in this vicinity, viz. : That in 

 one part of an orchard the 'hardy' as well as the 'tender' varieties were all killed, 

 while in the rest of the orchard, which was equally exposed, only the tender kinds were 

 injured. I have cut cions from several trees in the spring, and while the cions grew 

 finely, the trees from which they were taken soon after died. So far as I can ascertain, 

 the part of an orchard which was killed had a dry subsoil, while that of the balance 

 was more moist. It will be seen that the condition of a tree with its surface roots 

 killed and its lower roots in dry earth, would be like that of a cutting placed in dry soil 

 and watered on the surface. 



" Notwithstanding the unfavorable season and the insects, the supply of summer 

 and fall apples was sufficient for home consumption, but there is a scarcity of winter 

 varieties. The few Pear trees which have arrived at maturity in this county have given 

 their usual abundant yield of fine fruit. Many complain that their trees in young pear 

 orchards have died, but all such which I have examined were naked-bodied trees, 

 exposed to the sun, and have been injured every year on the south side since they were 

 planted. I have one hundred, which were planted in 1S58, by digging a place in the 

 sod about two feet in diameter, and putting in a root graft on pear stock, and every year 

 they have been spaded twice and enriched with compost from the hen roost and privy, 

 mixed with ashes. Not a tree has been injured or lost, and some of them bloomed last 

 spring. The soil is sandy, and the trees are pyramids with limbs to the ground. 



" It will not do to call a tree 'tender' because it was killed under such circum- 

 stances, and for this reason the past winter was no real test of hardiness, except of those 

 varieties which were universally killed by exposure. I cannot discover that screens or 

 timber belts have been of any benefit to orchards, while the fruit trees standing near a 

 hedge, or a row of willow, poplar, or maples, have suffered more from drought than 

 others. I have observed that all the orchards in this vicinity which were planted over a 



