12 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 



Muscatello Gordo Blanco: Makes a ranker growth when young; is 

 rather more tender than others to winter; berries of same color and 

 flavor as the above, but a trifle smaller and more elongated, and the 

 latest of all to ripen, requiring three w^eeks or more of September. 



The climatic change from dry to wet weather, during the summer of 

 189G, affected many varieties. Black-knot, imported with a few vines, 

 affected nearly every foreign variety — Thompson very little, but more 

 or less three fourths of the others. I cut off the knots and burned them, 

 and the vines healed, leaving little of scar. Black rot also appeared, 

 hitherto unknown to my vines, affecting nearly all the Muscats and 

 several Thompsons, some of them quite badly. But some of the natives 

 were much worse, notably Massasoit, then Lindley, Diamond, Vergennes, 

 Jefferson, Martha, and Concord, in about this order. After a heavy rain 

 in August, mildew attacked the older foreign vines, and later, in Sep- 

 tember, most of the young vines. That these diseases on hitherto healthy 

 vines, were the direct result of frequent and sometimes heavy rains, 

 combined with the heat of summer, is very apparent. 



The Secretary: I would like to know if any one knows of equal success 

 in growing foreign grapes out doors in Michigan, or any efforts to do so. 

 They are grown in greenhouses, but the importance of this paper is that 

 Mr. Surdan really is successful in producing foreign grapes out doors in 

 this state. If it can be done it is a matter of great importance to the 

 horticulturists of Michigan. 



Mr. Slayton: I have raised and ripened Black Hamburg out doors, 

 by covering the vines during the winter with earth. 



AN UNSAVORY PEACH CROP, ITS CAUSE AND CURE. 

 BY ME. JAS. F. TAYLOR OF DOUGLAS. 



The outlook for a large supply of peach fruit this year is not very 

 encouraging. To a casual observer, the closing days of 1896 and the 

 early months of 1897 were truly flattering. While the autumn was not 

 so warm as to develop the fruit buds unduly, or the winter so cold as 

 to congeal them severely, our anticipations of an abundant yield for 

 the autumn of 1897 are not to be realized. 



The savory odors of helpfulness that came to us from the fore-shadow- 

 ings of a bountiful fruit crop, with remunerative prices, have been 

 thwarted by every change in atmospheric pressure, until the perfume 

 of our peach groves is mostly of leaves. On account of this failure, 

 when so many points in nature's progressive development seemed to 

 converge toward better results, we deem it an unsavory crop. It will 

 not be sufficient to satisfy the hungry palates that last year feasted for a 

 song, while the ambitious producer went home hungry and discouraged. 



It seems to be perfectly natural for a peach tree to produce fruit an- 

 nually. When this regularity is broken, there is a definite cause and 

 not unfrequently an obvious one. Soil and climate enter into the con- 

 ditions in a marked degree. The former may be too lavish of wood pro- 

 duction to render it capable of resisting the low temperature of a zera 



