Vermont State Horticultueal Society. 63 



in some paper — and as like as not in some country paper at 

 that — just after a week of warm weather, an item to the effecc 

 "that the trees are all budded." We have lived here all of our 

 lives among these trees, have seen them bud and blossom ever 

 since we were born, and havn't discovered yet that they bud 

 the summer before, and the buds are there all winter. 



Like Dr. Holmes, the tree begins early, if it wishes to 

 raise a crop; it begins the summer before. While it is growing 

 one crop it is getting ready for the next one, making its fruit 

 buds and building up its tissue, and it depends upon the fortune 

 it has in the summer and fall, whether we have a crop of fruit 

 the next summer. I don't know how early those buds begin to 

 form, but very early. A year ago last summer all the apple and 

 plum trees were getting in their stock of winter fuel, storing 

 away the sunshine in wood and tissue, ripening up the new 

 growth and filling out the fruit buds. If you had looked at the 

 trees in October, you would have found those buds hard and 

 solid with sunshine. They had put on their heavy winter flan- 

 nels, and clad themselves in warm winter garments, and wrapped 

 up their buds in thick furs, and were well prepared to spend 

 the winter. When the wood is not well ripened and the buds 

 half grown, it takes very little cold to kill them. 



The ability of the blossoms to withstand the cold after 

 they had started in the spring, also depends upon the amount 

 of sunshine they obtained the year before. In 1902, the loth 

 of May, we stepped out of our house right into the winter. The 

 water in shallow tubs had formed ice more than a quarter of 

 an inch thick during the night. There was a heavy wind blow- 

 ing from the lake straight onto our shore, and it continued to 

 blow all day. The water was high, and the spray flew into the 

 trees that lined our shores and over the rocks. The sun shone 

 brightly all day, yet at night the rocks were coated with ice 

 two or three inches thick, and all the trees were hanging with 

 icicles as big as your arm, and hung there in the sunshine nearly 

 all the next day. The apricot trees were in full bloom, the plum 

 trees had about half of their blossoms open, the peach trees were 

 just ready to open their flowers, and the pears and apples were 

 beginning to show their color. We thought that the fruit 

 crop was to be an entire failure; but it never hurt it at all, 

 because the trees had made good preparation the year before, 

 and all the organs in those blossoms were hard with sunshine. 

 I have seen a field of corn where one stalk in a hill was left 

 standing after a frost. Why do you suppose that stalk was left ? 

 That kernel of corn was better equipped, it had more sunshine 

 in it, and was prepared to withstand the cold. 



