WINTER MEETING, 1877. 5 



certain soils. I wish to ask Avhat favoved country on our broad smiling earth 

 has escaped similar or more severe visitations of a sometime frigidity. Not 

 the "dear snnny climes" of Italy, Spain, nor fair, favored France, nor yet our 

 Florida, famed in Flora's realms, nor tlic far Faderlands of Germany. Not 

 ■while we read of an ice-bound lihiMO and Seine ; ice-bridges in the lower Mis- 

 sissippi, and Florida's frozen figs, oranges and bananas, frost-blighted acacias 

 and magnolias. These are no rare occurrences in those and other most favored 

 climes ; and we may endure our severest winters as we do sickness and losses in 

 our own ranks, thankful forjiast immunities, and hopeful of and for future suc- 

 cess through our brightening prospects, in tlie ranks of our fair queen Pomona, 

 in her most loyal province of Michigan. 



Now our most etficient remedy for hurts and hindrances of this ilk is, plant 

 profusely. Plant again, set and reset, plant trees, plant vines ! Like the election- 

 eering creed on voting — plant early and often. Neither an occasional failure 

 in crops nor loss of trees and vines, can controvert the fact, now so well demon- 

 strated, that Michigan is a pomological State, and hard to beat in her line. 

 Farmers must encounter seasons of drouth and of wet, yet they cling to corn, 

 clover and wheat, wool, pork and stock. 



Just here we will refer to loss and injury from early and late frosts. In this 

 regard we would reiterate what our society has so often urged before, viz. : 

 the importance of your highest locations in fruit planting. Many have been 

 diverted from this initial point vainly looking for protection, in shelter, in 

 warm exposure, in timber belts, and the like, while atmospheric drainage is the 

 protection required as indicated by the simple fact that we find the mercury 

 showing a temperature several degrees lower in the valleys than upon the hill 

 tops. We sometimes, however, see nature providing a preventive, or remedy 

 against the disadvantages of the low lands, in clothing them in impenetrable 

 fogs and night vapors. Light frosts have no injurious effects where vegetation 

 remains long enough encased in this frost proof armor of humidity. But in 

 these lowlands it is hazardous trusting to their remaining immured in these 

 fickle vestures of surrounding moisture and vapors, for they are very liable to 

 vanish with the dawn, and old Sol to beam forth with undimmed splendors on 

 the doomed and frosted valleys. 



When unfortunately our plants have been frosted we hasten to relieve them 

 by a sprinkling of water, and a thorough moistening before the sun or dry at- 

 mosphere shall strike them. Now if agricultural chemistry or science will 

 furnish us a material or method by means of which the blossoms and embryo 

 fruit may be artificially clad in their vestures of moisture, then we have an 

 additional protection against the ravages of Jack Frost. The most efficient 

 agent for this purpose within our knowledge is land plaster, or common gyp- 

 sum. This cheap and abundant article, witiiin the reach of all, seems to draw 

 the moisture to the plant or the embryo fruit, and also to so concentrate the 

 ammonia and gases from the passing vapors, as to feed, protect and strengthen 

 the germ and young fruits, and to tide them over some of the vicissitudes of 

 their early stages, such as frosts, not too severe, and our cold drying easterly 

 winds, or other blighting winds that have sometimes blasted whole crops. 

 Those who have tried it told me they had saved their crops of stone fruits by 

 the use of this convenient remedy or preventive. Their manner of applying 

 was by repeatedly sowing it over leaves and blossoms of all trees through the 

 season of blooming and fruit setting, wliile damp with morning dews or rain. 

 It can't be applied too often over our orchards as above. It has been attended 



