Annual Meeting at St. Joseph. 87 



lengths to suit. Just so tliese reports, with few exceptions ; the 

 same general summing up will be a season of poor results. 



As for my report, were I to follow my own individual ex- 

 periences and that of my immediate locality, I would be tempted 

 to lay before your secretary a blank, as most fitly representing the 

 condition of things in my section. -Yet this would be hardly fair, 

 however, as some sections have not suifered as badly as others. 

 Therefore, I will not bore you with a very long lecture as I have 

 not the material for so doing, even had I the inclination. A 

 retrospect of the last twelve months presents to us a series of un- 

 pleasant surprises and fai hires. The past year gave us far below 

 an average of all tree fruits, it being the odd or off fruit year. 



Under favorable climatic conditions a large crop of fruit could 

 not be exj)ected. But when to this fact is added an unusually 

 long and severe winter, the results were for some orchards an almost 

 total failure, and for others a small crop of fruit. Such seasons 

 however, are not an unmixed evil to horticulturists, for they teach 

 us very many useful lessons. 



We thought our orchards were going into winter quarters last 

 fall in fine condition; the summer's growth being well ripened up to 

 withstand the severe cold winter ; and they were to all appearances, 

 but our trees were greatly weakened by the excessive crop of last 

 year, and the cold winter following a season of unusual productive- 

 ness could not but be disastrous to all orchard trees. And not 

 bearing a crop this )'ear will save tens of thousands of fruit trees 

 from ultimate death. However, springtime came with sunny skies 

 and sweet bird music with their wealth of flowers ; for our orchards 

 bloomed profusely, one solid mass of flowers. But owing to the 

 exhausted condition of the trees, the fruit soon began to fall and of 

 the greater portion of varieties of apples very few remained, while 

 on some varieties where the tree was not exhausted the fruit ap- 

 peared to set and grow very well. 



But here comes another disappointment, for it would seem that 

 the elements had vied with each other in their tremendous efforts 

 to destroy form in matter : especially that which man had raised 

 up as a monument to his genius and industry. The first of those 

 destructive hail storms came on tlie seventeenth day of May and if 

 I were to try to draw a picture of the damage, or try to describe the 

 destruction I w^ould be censured for overdrawing, or misstating. 

 But the hurricane and the hail in their resistless fury swept away 

 the growing grain, uprooted the trees in the orchards and crushed 

 the fruit, the leaf and tlie tender growth of the tree, and did great 



