22 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Mr. Lannin : Has not the plum been acquiring the habit of prematurely 

 dropping its foliage for a few years back? Then why has the winter served 

 such trees disastrously? But, gentlemen, Mr. Nagle's orchard did not drop its 

 leaves ; it was on heavy soil. There was no overloading of the trees, because 

 it is a young orchard ; but he did give it good, clean culture. Now have you 

 not the key to the mystery? His good culture created a late growth which was 

 immature, and the sap was all in circulation when the trees were caught by the 

 cold snap, and they were not in condition to withstand it. Now we would 

 seem to have an explanation, but here is a difficulty in the way. My trees were 

 on clay, but in grass and killed also without culture, and along side of them 

 were those tender peaches, Early Rivers and Early Louise, uninjured and in 

 bearing this year. I give it up, gentlemen. 



Mr. Irwin of Buchanan gave a doleful account of the destruction of Baldwin 

 apple trees upon his place, and others from Berrien county gave utterance to 

 similar statements. 



A. R. Nowlend, Benton Harbor : I am satisfied that the winter killing was 

 almost entirely due to immature wood. 



W. A. Brown testified to same facts as others, and believed that had the wood 

 matured and sap gone into winter quarters before it was checked by severe 

 weather, the trees would have been safe. One great difficulty here in Berrien 

 county was that the lake was useless when the coldest time came, for the wind 

 was an easterly one. One gentleman testified that his ten-year Baldwins were 

 killed, while Bartlett pears upon the same exposure had not been injured at all. 



Mr. Edgell : Most of the peach trees killed with us are what is known as 

 collar-killed. The trees appeared all right in body and limb, but examina- 

 tion developed a perfect girdle of dead bark and cambium at the collar of the 

 tree. 



Mr. Woodward : Tiiorough culture lost me 800 peach trees. The few that 

 I did not care for so well are all right. Mine were all killed in the same way 

 as Mr. Edgell suggests. 



Mr. Lannin : One reason for collar killing in our county was that the trees 

 were bared at the roots to kill borers, and the water settled and froze them, de- 

 stroying the life. 



Mr. Woodward : But large numbers of my trees are on a slant of gi'ound at 

 an angle of seventy-five degrees. How could the water stand there? And still 

 the trees are killed all the same. 



Mr. Lannin : I was not born a Solomon. 



Dr. Winans, Benton Harbor : A great deal of the plum killing can be ac- 

 counted for in this wise : There was a heavy crop of fruit and premature fall- 

 ing of the leaf. The fruit made a great draft upon the vitality of the tree in 

 trying to perfect itself without leaves. This thoroughly unfitted the tree to 

 withstand any trouble, for the tree was almost dead when winter came on. 

 Grapes suffered in the same way, — leaves dropped early, leaving nothing but 

 fruit on bare canes. In some cases mildew caused the dropping, in other cases 

 something else, but the effect was the same, — a great drain on the vitality of 

 the vine, and consequent weak state to resist excessive cold. 



J. 0. Ramsdell, Traverse City : At my place the thermometer reached — 14° ; 

 on the peninsula only — 10°. There was no damage done to my^ orcharding 

 except plums. Washington and Jefferson suffered most. I lost 50 trees out 

 of 750. They all bore heavily last year and rotted very badly; 700 out of 1,000 

 bushels were lost by rot. Six years ago my orchard went through a tempera- 

 ture of — 26° and came out all right. The whole thing depends upon how the 



