300 THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 



THE FRUIT AND VEGETABLE CROPS OF 1874. 



f ACH season has ita lessons, and with a laudable desire to 

 insure the best results in the production of those crops 

 which are so essential to our health and comfort, we 

 should not be slow in taking them to heart. The 

 summer of 1874 has been characterized by drought, 

 and a comparative high temperature, and it may, therefore, take its 

 place with the summers of 1868 and 1870, which will long be held 

 in remembrance by the present generation. The average tempera- 

 ture of the summer through which we have just passed will not 

 range so high as the average of either of the summers of the two 

 years mentioned above, because we have had several rather long 

 spells of cold weather to counter-bahince the excess of heat. The 

 intense heat, for example, experienced during the last ten days or so 

 of April, which set many inexperienced people busy bedding out, 

 was followed by a long period of cold weather, which culminated in 

 a sharp frost in June that betokened the potato failing, and in 

 many instances killed kidney beans and vegetable marrows, and 

 also did an immense amount of mischief in the flower garden. In 

 August the temperature declined very considerably, and in the 

 Crystal Palace grounds at Sydenham the thermometer went down 

 to within one or two degrees of the freezing point. Thus it is that, 

 although we have had much hot weather, the average for the 

 summer months will not be so high as in 1868 and 1870, for in 

 these years the hot weather set in early in the spring, and con- 

 tinued, without intermission, until late in the autumn. 



As regards the crops of fruit and vegetables, 1874 will bear very 

 favourable comparison with either of the recent seasons of drought. 

 Fruit generally has been tolerably abundant. Plums have been 

 more plentiful than for many years past, and there will be no diffi- 

 culty in filling the fruit-room with excellent samples of apples and 

 pears. It was at one time feared that the fruit crop would have 

 been totally destroyed, for the frosts experienced during the time 

 the trees were in bloom, were comparatively severe ; as also were 

 those which caused so much anxiety later on, whilst the fruit was 

 young and tender. The safety of the crop may undoubtedly be 

 attributed in the one case to the dryness of the bloom, and in the 

 other to the protection afforded by the newly-developed foliage, and 

 a more striking lesson relative to the importance of shelter in the 

 production of fruit could not well have been afforded. It is not so 

 much the cold as the dampness which injures the flowers, and the 

 experience of this season, coupled with observations made in pre- 

 vious years, has shown most conclusively that a frost which is 

 sufficiently severe to totally wreck the crops when the flowers are 

 damp, is comparatively harmless when the bloom is quite dry. And 

 the late frosts demonstrated that moderate shelter only was quite 

 sufficient to protect the young fruit from injury. There can be no 

 question as to the value of glass in the cultivation of the choicest 

 kinds of fruits ; for, provided it is managed properly, the crops will 



