PROCEEDINGS OF THE SUMMER MEETING 13 



winter, or too sterile to produce fruit buds of fruitful capacity. But 

 the climatic conditions are more obvious. We measure them with instru- 

 ments and compare them with former results that have come within the 

 range of our experience, and therefore are ready to attribute all failures, 

 when they appear, to these potent causes. 



The most frequent conditions of unfruitfulness are found in the fol- 

 lowing antecedents: 



1. A dry summer, which ripens the fruit buds in early autumn, if fol- 

 lowed by a warm October and a cold winter, is often injurious. 



2. A very mild winter, which may cause the sap to flow freely, if 

 followed by zero weather in March is more or less fatal to good -results. 



3. Early blooming, followed by cold, wet weather which is often pro- 

 ductive of leaf-curl, causes the young fruit to drop, and proves a fruit- 

 ful source of unfruitfulness. 



Other conditions not so marked as those I have named, such as heavy 

 rains while the trees are in bloom, and the depredations of insects, may 

 at times greatly disappoint our fondest hopes; but there are evidently 

 other influences at work, under the laws of practical horticulture, which 

 are not so obvious or so highly appreciated, that enter very largely into 

 the failure of the peach crop as it comes to us in this calendar year of 

 1897. 



We must not forget that the science of pomology is broader and 

 deeper than planting a tree and securing a vigorous growth. The prep- 

 aration which nature makes for fruitfulness is not confined to a single 

 year. One summer reaches forward into another. The fruit buds formed 

 in 1894 gave an abundant crop in 1895, and those formed in 1895 gave an 

 overplus in 1896. We have all been anticipating that the fruit buds 

 formed in 1896 would produce like results in 1897. As well might a 

 man attempt to perform two days' labor in one and keep it up the year 

 round. Exhaustion of his physical powers, sooner or later, must come. 

 Let us remember that nature's laws are so adjusted as to recuperate 

 the life and growth of the tree or plant, as well as to produce fruit. They 

 reach out after an equilibrium. If a large amount of fruit draws on 

 the life of a tree in one year, wood growth and foliage come in for their 

 share at the next turn of the rolling season. This is a marked character- 

 istic of nut-bearing forest trees. The chestnut, the oak, the beech, the 

 walnut, the hickory, in their native wilderness, commonly have alternate 

 years of growth and fruitfulness. Some varieties of cultivated fruits 

 cling very tenaciously to this habit. One year is a compensation for 

 the other. All the ingenuity of scientific horticulture has failed to cor- 

 rect this undesirable tendency in any marked degree. And yet, with 

 these facts continually before us, fruitgrowers have largely failed to 

 avail themselves of the remedy that is within easy reach, where the 

 habit of yearly production has been established. While some fruit trees 

 show this tendency to bear only on alternate years, the peach is almost as 

 fruitful in its preparation for a yearly crop. There seem to be but 

 two potent causes to the contrary, viz., climatic conditions and pro- 

 ductive exhaustion. If peach trees are ever rendered unfruitful by over- 

 production, this year should be one of failure from this cause, if for no 

 other reason. Probably nine tenths of all the peach trees in western 

 Michigan ripened more fruit in 1896 than was for the best interest of 

 their vitality, while the quantity ripened in 1895 was nearly as large. 

 From this standpoint nlone we have abundant reason to conclude that 



