154 TRANSACTIONS OF THE ILLINOIS 



Having premised this much as to the general aims and acts of the Committee, I now 

 proceed to report my individual impressions of what I have seen during the year 1868. 



THE TEAR UNFAVORABLE. 



The year as a whole has not heen favorable to the fruit grower. The excessive drought 

 of 1867, it is true, developed an immense quantity of fruit buds ; but this was an evi- 

 dence of weakened vitality in the trees as well as a promise of fruit, and was excessive 

 in its development. I found more double buds, such as would have produced double 

 fruit on the peach, than I ever remember to have seen before, in my own orchard. This 

 excess of bloom, no doubt, still further weakened the vigor of bearing trees and plants. 

 Peaches, cherries and plums were in full bloom at Galconda, in March ; at Dubois, Wash- 

 ington county, peach blossoms were opening on the 5th of April ; at my own place in 

 Madison county, I saw scattering peach blossoms as early as April 1st. These dates are 

 more than two weeks earlies than those of 1867, and some days earlier than those of 

 average years. 



Supervening upon this advanced condition of flowering came the cold weather of the 

 5th of April, on which day the thermometer according to the Agricultural reports sank 

 to its minimum for the month, at 16 out of 23 reporting mS|eorological stations in Illi- 

 nois ranging from 9° above zero, or 23° below the freezing point at Marengo, near the 

 northern line of the State, to 26° above zero, or 6° below freezing at Golconda on the 

 Ohio river. The weather of the 8th and 9th was not much more favorable. At Dubois 

 there was a severe frost on the 8th. At Waterloo, on the 9th, fruit blossoms were cov- 

 ered with ice. During the time of blooming in our Alton region, we also had a great 

 deal of cold damp weather, which I think hindered perfect fertilization, and farther 

 impaired the vitality of such fruit buds or blossoms as had escaped the frosts. 



The result was a short crop of all fruits, except the grape, which was nearly every 

 where abundant, and of fine appearance. Paradoxically, the apple was more injured 

 than the peach, a fact for which I have not yet found an entirely satisfactory reason. 



INSECT DEPREDATIONS. 



Following the unfavorable weather came some very fierce attacks from our insect 

 enemies. The curculio was out in full force, and ruined the peach crop in many locali- 

 ties, where the crop was scant. The codling moth was abundant. The comparative 

 exemption of some of the full orchards, and the unusual amount of injury done this 

 year, suggest the query whether insects do not attack more persistently fruit damaged 

 by cold or otherwise, or at least attack it with greater effect. If this be so, we may re- 

 gard the injury done by insects as in part a meteorological effect, and provide against it 

 with more forethought when the season is unpropitious, and look for comparative ex- 

 emption when it is favorable. My own experience and observation tend to this conclu- 

 sion : that the unprecedented increase of injury done by insects is the result of bad 

 seasons rather than of the increase in the number of our fruit plantations. 



FRUIT GROWERS DISCOURAGED. 



Fruit growers have been discouraged by the general failure this year, more so than I 

 have before noticed. The loss of the fruit crop combined with the hard times has made 

 the fruit grower's a hard road to travel. But this has been, in part, caused by too exclu- 

 sive attention to fruit growing, and even to one branch of fruit growing. Just as the 



