Wmter Meeting. 307 



South Missouri, is because their buds are too easily started in win- 

 ter. Of the well-known earlier varieties, Carman and Family 

 Favorite are probably best adapted to the southern part of the 

 State, because of hardiness of bud. Carman would be the better 

 one of the two. Taking the seasons as they come, the Lewis has 

 shown itself to be able to withstand all the unfavorable conditions 

 of late years and proved to be the hardiest variety of all. Not a 

 good shipper, however — too soft. 



By the dormant, or resting, period of plants is meant the period 

 from the time the leaves are shed in the fall until growth begins 

 in spring. Fruit trees, in common with nearly all the forms of our 

 common vegetation growing in fields or woods, have an annual 

 resting period of four or five months. From extensive experi- 

 ments conducted by the writer during the past year with several 

 hundred different species of plants, he is led to believe that the rest 

 period of plants may in some waj^ have something to do with the 

 hardiness of plants like peach trees. It has ahvays been supposed 

 by good botanists that the rest period in plants was a necessity; 

 that is, that it is a part of their nature to go dormant at a certain 

 time, and that many of them could not be aroused into gro^vth be- 

 fore the normal time for awakening in spring. In nearly every 

 case, with large numbers of different kinds of plants, the writer 

 found that they could be forced into growth almost at will. It was 

 found, however, that there are great differences in plants as re- 

 gards their ability to grow or be made to grow during the winter 

 after they have once become dormant. Some kinds grow easily by 

 merely being placed in a warm room, while others must be treated 

 with ether, chloroform, drying or freezing before they will grow. 

 The peach is one of the plants which seems to have a comparatively 

 short resting period, after which it is apparently able to begin 

 growth again if conditions are favorable. This probably accounts 

 for the fact that they grow" easily during warm days in late winter, 

 when other species, like the white-oak, for example, has a long 

 resting period, from which it cannot be aroused except by severe 

 methods of treatment. It is known that the French gardener, who 

 grows peaches out of season by special treatment, causes his trees 

 in midsummer to cease growing, and thus brings on a real resting 

 period by artificial means. The principal means for accomplishing 

 this is to withhold water. This is easily done, as the trees are 

 usually grow^n in pots or in" the greenhouse. After a period of 

 dormancy lasting a few weeks, the trees are watered and caused to 

 begin growing again. They can then be kept growing vigorously 



