Secretary's Budget. 379 



house to keep fruit properly must be built upon the principle of a 

 refrigerator. Its walls, floor, and ceiling, should be double, and 

 the space between them filled with saw-dust. The doors and 

 windows should be double, and as light is undesirable, the win- 

 dows are to be provided with shutters. There should be a small 

 stove for use, if needed, to keep a proper temperature in severe 

 weather. 



AVINTER-KILLIJTG PLANTS AND TREES. 



Attention has frequently been called to the fact that rapid 

 growing trees and plants are more apt to winter-kill than those of 

 slow growth. L. H. Bailey, Jr., gives this probable explanation of 

 the cause in the Countrij Gentleman : I have this fall made micro- 

 scopical examinations of well-ripened apple twigs of rapid and slow 

 growth. In all cases the thickened interior cell-walls, with their 

 peculiar markings, gave evidence of maturity. The thickness of 

 the walls was about the same in both kinds of twigs, but the cell- 

 cavities were from one and a half to over two times as large in the 

 rapidly grown twigs as in the slowly gi'own ones. If the theory be 

 correct that winter-killing of tender bi'auches is due to the rupturing 

 of the cell-walls by the freezing of the moist contents of the cells, 

 we may have here an explanation of our problem. In proportion 

 to the size of cell-cavities, the cell-walls in the rapidly growing 

 twigs were only about half as strong as in the other twigs, and so 

 they could not withstand so great a strain. 



THE FUTURE OF HORTICULTURAL EXPERIMENT. 



The Secretary dispatclied a note to Dr. E. L. Sturtevant, 

 Director of the New York Experimental Station, inquiring what 

 was his view of the trend experiments should take to be of greatest 

 advantage to the horticulturalist. A prompt reply is so full of 

 suggestions that we give it complete as follows : 

 Chas. W. Garfield, Esq., Grand Rapids, Mich. 



Dear Sir : — You ask me for a note upon the future of hor- 

 ticultural experiment for use iu your portfolio. I suppose jou are 

 aware that an answer must be merely an opinion whicli cannot be 

 supported by facts or data of an accurate character. 



It seems to me that the work in horticulture has been very hap- 

 hazard, and that the great gain that has been made has come more 

 from the number of people who have been engaged in the attempt 

 to form new and improved varieties tlian from any one particular 

 system that they have followed. Whether horticulture shall make 



