290 



Effjets of Frost on Borynant Vegetation. [June, 



fatal to its life and well-being - - - - - - is plainly contradicted by 



every winter day's experience." 



I was rejoiced to see attached to the other article such a name as that 

 of A. H. Ernst, whose "high attainments" in practical and scientific 

 horticulture are too well known to need "your indorsement." " I pe- 

 rused it with no small interest. - - - - I must, however, confess my 



disappointment and regret that his article affords no new light, but is 

 confined to" mere scraps of information which, '"it is to be presumed, 

 every intelligent horticulturist is familiar with." 



After animadverting on his wondrous condescension in noticing an 

 arti;^-le on such a subject " over a fictitious signature," which I fully ap- 

 preciate and acknowledge the honor thus conferred upon me, he inti- 

 mates that my expression of the "alarm among all our horticulturists." 

 and that " the subject has not met with the attention from practical 

 horticulturists which it deserves," were mere suppositions. By refer- 

 ence to the report of the meeting of the Horticultural Society, on 26th 

 January, as reported in the " Columbian'' of the 28th, it vrill be seen 

 that there was considerable alarm. In frequent conversations with some 

 of those interested, I found that the general opinion was, that there 

 would 5e little or no fruit this season. If the subject had met with the 

 " attention which it deserves," there would not have been so much alarm, 

 and Mr. E. would not have made such a bad guess as that " the fruit- 

 buds of the peach, most of the cherries and pear arc dead, and some of 

 the trees also," which he will now see is far from being the case. How 

 often, also, after a severe winter, have thousands of trees, etc., been 

 torn up or chopped down for dead, when only apparently so, as shown by 

 the surviving of the few which were saved from the hasty hand of the 

 "practical horticulturist?" How many have been thus destroyed 

 this spring ? The reports of the meetings of the Horticultural Society 

 tell of some ; and. I have no doubt, there are many others on which a 

 coroner's jury would be very apt to return a verdict of " murdered 

 through ignorance." A letter read before the same Society, a few meet- 

 ings ago, by Mr. Mears, from a friend in the East, shows that the same 

 " work of death "has been carried on there. Some of his neighbors 

 had torn up many young trees, etc., which were apparentlij dead, while 

 his own, which presented the same appearanae, are now living. In a 

 communication to the '' ITorticuJiuralist," in the April No., p. 170, Mr. 

 Benj. Hodge states that in western Xcw York, in the wiut.r of 1844-5, 

 during which the weather was unusuiUy severe, the same " plan of 

 operations " was carried on. After the severe frosts " many without 

 further delay cut down the trees and cleared away the rubbish." And 



