POMOLOGY AND METEOROLOGY. ^61 



and are as necessary in the order of nature as is the motion of the earth or th3 

 light of the sun. The words of the poet are good philosophy to-day: 



" All are hut parts of one stupendous •whole. 

 Whose body nature is, and God the soul." 



THE MYSTERIES OF PLANT GROWTH. 



The unexplained phenomena are hy no means confined to the meteorological 

 side of the subject. The mysteries of Nature's ways in the processes of rear- 

 ing up organic forms are no less numerous. 



In pomology we are constantly met by problems which we cannot solve. 

 Our successes and our losses are connected more or less with causes which are 

 unexplained; a winter freeze, an untimely frost, a drought, a wind, have all 

 brought us their losses. These accidents, as we call them, seem to be easily 

 traced to the cause, while other losses are not so easily traced. The derange- 

 ment in the structure and in the functions of the leaves, resulting in the fail- 

 ure to form blossom buds for the next season ; the appearance and spread of 

 rot on the ripening cherries, grapes and peaches, and its sometimes sudden 

 arrest, the appearance of mildew and attacks of pear blight, are not so open to 

 an unhesitating conclusion as to their cause. 



COIXCIDEXCES. 



While we are surrounded by mysteries which we may not solve, we do, by 

 noting coincidences, get many practical facts of value to our calling. But 

 these coincidences often mislead us: thus, on a frosty morning we see, as the 

 sun comes out with power, some of our flowers or tender fruit germs perish ; 

 we say the frost did it because it is coincident with it, but in the occurrence of 

 frosts at same degree of freezing, but with different degrees of the succeeding 

 sunlight or heat, we find results to difier, and we next infer that it is warming, 

 and not freezing, which does the mischief. 



"We find, when an untimely freeze puts our tender plants in jeopardy, that 

 if followed by fog or by cloudiness, and the temperature is raised but slowly, our 

 tender plants may remain unhurt. Apples, in autumn, may freeze on the trees 

 so as to rattle like stones when struck together; but if the sky is cloudy and 

 the weather moderates very slowly, the keeping quality of those frozen apples 

 is not perceptibly hurt. 



We need not despise the lessons from coincidences though we are still hedged 

 in by mysteries. 



FUXGOID GROWTH. 



It has been an easy way to explain the occurrence of grape, cherry, and 

 peach-rot, and of mildew of vines, and of pear blight, by charging all to attacks 

 of fungoid growths, without stopping to consider that the atmosphere is, ordi- 

 narily, full of their spores, and that all growth must go ta swift destruction if 

 the attacks of spores do not require a previous morbid condition of the living 

 organism. If they do, that morbid condition is the disease, and the fungus 

 only the result. To call the fungus the disease is just as reasonable as to call 

 the worms of the dust the cause of our demise. 



We find fungus a coincident of rot, but that is not proof that it is the cause. 



There are atmospheric coincidents of value in considering the drawbacks 

 which Pomologists encounter. 



BAROMETRIC OBSERYATIOXS. 



About eighteen years figo I resorted to barometric observations to enable me 

 to forestall, if possible, the sometimes very rapidly ripening of peaches without 



