'^l M-? TEARS ON QUINCE STOCKS. yf 



trees — Cherries, Apricots, Peaches, and even Plums — were totally lost. Ornamental 

 trees and plants suffered from the same cause, and thousands of specimens of many 

 years' growth, and great value, were lost. The English horticultural journals have 

 not yet got through with publishing the results. The vine disease in Europe is 

 another one of those occasional misfortunes which befall the cultivator, and which no 

 human foresight can anticipate or ward off. We have heard of a minute beetle, so 

 minute as to be almost invisible to the naked eye, making its appearance all at once, 

 and carrying destruction into whole regions of Pine forests. The blight known as 

 " the fre blight,'''' which for the last seven or eight years has committed serious ravages 

 on the Pear tree in various localities, moving about and shifting from place to place 

 in a most mysterious manner, is another of those disastrous visitations. These are 

 things that rational men will expect, just as much as they do hurricanes both by sea 

 and land, hail-storms, floods, and drouths. The cultivator, of all other men, must 

 continually feel himself at the mercy of the elements, — be can never count with safety 

 upon a crop until it is gathered : and it is perhaps well for him that this is so; for it 

 reminds him that, notwithstanding the wondrous works of his enterprise, industry, 

 and skill, he is still powerless as a child in foreseeing or guarding against the extraor- 

 dinary phenomena oi" nature. In one night, or day, or hour, or even in one minute, 

 the labor of years is swept off, and all he can do is to shake his head, and say, alas ! 

 But men now-a-days are not easily discouraged. "Would we not all agree in pro- 

 nouncing it the height of folly, in English nurserymen and planters, to abandon the 

 cultivation of all trees that suffered by last spring's frosts; or in plant-growers to 

 abandon plant-culture, because their glass roofs have been all smasked by a hail 

 storm ; or in the Orange- growers of Genoa to cease their culture, because a severe 

 winter occasionally destroys their crops, and even their trees. To abandon the use of 

 the Quince stock, merely on account of the destruction of last winter, would be no 

 less a folly ; for such circumstances as led to it may not happen again during the life- 

 time of any one now living. 



And now, what were the circumstances ? Judging from our own observations here, 

 and the accounts of persons in some other localities, we believe them to be these : 

 In the month of January we had first a severe cold, which, in the absence of snow 

 on the ground, penetrated it deeply ; then came a slight fall of snow; and then a 

 thaw. The thaw for a day or two was rapid ; and just as the snow was all melted, 

 and the ground about half thawed, intense cold set in all at once. The whole sur- 

 face of the ground was covered with water which could not get down, and this 

 water was suddenly converted into ice, so that one might, have skaited for miles 

 over the country ; the wiud blew a perfect hurricane at the same time, so that our 

 men who were at work pruning in the nursery were compelled to quit, as they found 

 it impossible either to face the cutting wind or to keep their feet on the ice ; our 

 teamsters, even, who are seldom deterred by t^ie weather, " hauled off." "We never 

 saw such a dismal time. Evergreens, that in the coldest weather have usually an 

 /^ aspect of warmth and comfort, were pictures of distress ; their branches and 

 ^ were frozen stiff, and looked dried up, instead of yielding as usual to the blast; 



