276 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



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Kalamazoo, writes that strawberries and cherries ripen from the 1st to the 

 4th of July ; crop of both very fair, and strawberries always sure, as they have 

 snow protection in winter and are free from late frosts in spring ; never saw 

 better cherries for the season ; his oldest cherry trees are four years from 

 setting. The Black Tartarian and Eltons are full ; part of the buds of the 

 Yellow Spanish and Kent's Early Black were winter-killed. The better sort 

 of seedling peach trees about here are bearing in proportion to the neglect with 

 which they were treated last year. We have some budded trees with a fair 

 show of fruit, but in the majority the buds were winter-killed, and such of the 

 young orchards {2 or 3 years old) as received high cultivation are nearly ruined. 

 Apples and pears, as usual. We expect the Society to meet in Traverse City 

 in October next. 



Judge Ramsdell. — I am not aware of the extent of the report desired. 



The President. — A report of all kinds of fruits now growing. 



Judge Eamsdell. — The Apple in the Traverse region promises a very large 

 crop, being in full bearing. I notice the bark is split in some places, but it 

 does not appear to affect the trees. Plums — the crop is very full. My plum 

 trees have made a growth of a foot or a foot and a half this year. Clierries are 

 well ladened, but the sweet varieties have suffered from frost this winter. I 

 cannot account for the dying down of some of the trees. Peaclies are spotty. 

 East side of the bay, where the country is level, the peaches are nearly all 

 killed. On the peninsula, where the laud is rolling, those on the highest spots 

 are good. Pears, n good crop. Grapes, we shall have a crop. The Concord, Dela- 

 ware, lona, and some others are bearing crops. All of my vineyard I pruned 

 last fall ; was entirely under the snow from November to April. Quinces were 

 injured some on the tips, but the old wood is sound and there will be a fair crop. 

 Sti'awberries Y>Yom\se an abundant crop. Wilson's Albany, jast beginning to 

 turn when I left. The cherries hre yet green. We all planted early cherries which 

 ripened before the raspberries, and the birds take the cherries while waiting for 

 the wild raspberries, their usual food. We are troubled with a worm on the 

 plum tree which is destructive. We tried tar to kill it, but did not succeed, and 

 had to let it take its course. There is no one matter bearing upon the successful 

 culture of tender fruit liable to be injured by late vernal or early autumnal 

 frosts, or severe winter weather, more important than the matter of topograph- 

 ical location. Observations, based upon injuries to the peach orchards in 

 northern Michigan, lead me to believe that those locations which we would 

 select to'avoid the late spring frosts are equally efficient in protecting pear trees 

 from winter-killing, where the intense cold occurs in still weather. All 

 through the Traverse Bay region, where the peach trees were on level ground, 

 or in the basins, whether high or low, near the water or far from it, they were 

 badly injured, and where well cultivated almost entirely destro^'ed, while on the 

 side hills and ridges, having rapid and unobstructed atmospheric drainage to 

 Grand Traverse Bay, or the lake, or any of the inland lakes in that region, the 

 peach trees are not only uninjured but will produce a fair crop of fruit. I 

 account for this upon the same principles that render such localities exempt 

 from spring frosts. Ordinary frosts and extreme cold in still weather are 

 greatly intensified, if not entirely caused, by radiation of heat from the surface 

 of the earth. As the heat passes into space, the air near the ground becomes 

 colder, and if there is no wind and the ground is level, moisture condenses, 

 producing dew. When the temperature is reduced to 32^* the dew freezes and 

 becomes frost. If the temperature is reduced still lower, then the sap in the 



