MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS. 229 



recover from. Fruit trees are peculiarly sensitive when in bud or 

 bloom, and especially, as was the case last spring, when there has been 

 a period of early warm weather to start the sap flowing freely and to 

 open the fiber of the wood and bark. When fruit trees once started 

 to bud and bloom by the free flowing of sap are overtaken by cold, wet 

 weather, the effect is bad, and if the cold and dampness are protracted, 

 the efiect is disastrous to a yield of fruit. 



" Trees one tempered by early warm weather are very sensitive to 

 cold and dampness. But these conditions are out of the reach of pre- 

 vention, so far as horticulturists now know. Growers have no way to 

 guard against it. 



"The failure this year is quite general over the West. The storm 

 that caused it came on ahead cf a cold northwest wind. It seemed to 

 divide over the Ozarks, and the western portion of it went through 

 Western Missouri, Western Arkansas and Texas, modifying, of course, 

 as it extended south. The eastern portion went through Eastern Mis- 

 souri, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and portions of Michigan and 

 Western !New York. Further north, in Canada, the storm had no 

 effect. The spring is later there. 



"The storm did not go east of the Alleghenies, but everywhere 

 that it did extend the fruit crop has been a failure this year. There 

 was one exception in the West, and that was in the southern tier of 

 counties of this State, where the orchards were protected by the high 

 ridges of pine forests on the north and west. These elevated pine 

 timber lauds caused the effects of the storm to rise and pass over that 

 section, and the result is that there was a good crop of fruit there this 

 fall, some orchards having produced as high as 10,000 bushels. 



" The result of all this is that our market has to seek its supplies 

 this year from as faraway as Maine and Canada. The New England 

 <;rop is good, as is that of Eastern New York. 



"The estimated crop of Missouri is about 22 per cent. In the 

 southern portion of the State it is about 80 per cent. The crop in 

 Western New York is perhaps 45 per cent, but in the other fruit-pro- 

 -ducing states west of the Alleghenies, except a portion of Michigan, 

 it is as low as 22 per cent. New Eugland and Eastern New York have 

 a yield of 75 or 80 per cent, and Canada has a full crop." 



