The spring is unusually late with us. The Cherry is only now in full blossom — one month 

 later than some years. The thermometer is down to 44 = — 9 o'clock P. M. The prospect for 

 fruit the coming season is yet quite cheering with us ; but a late frost may blast all our hopes 

 of eating Cherries, Apricots, Plums, Peaches, <fec. Samuel Miller. — Cahndale, near Lebanom 

 Lebanon Co., Pa., May 9, 1855. 



Effects of Cold. — In this region we raise Peaches about two years in five ; the rest of the 

 time our buds are killed by the extreme cold in the winter. In the year IS'il I became con- 

 vinced that the common opinion was incorrect, that the fruit-buds were killed in the spring by 

 having cold weather after some warm days had swelled the buds. The first snow that winter 

 fell the Ist of January, nearly one and half feet, and ended with a gale from the nothwest which 

 drifted the snow very much. During the winter we had a snow-storm almost every week, and 

 then a drift ; so that by mid-winter the fences were covered. My father had a small nursery of 

 Peach trees which were seven or eight feet high and branched within two feet of the ground. 

 These were covered five or six feet with snow till March. An uncle of mine, in this city, had 

 some bearing Peach trees that branched within three feet of the ground, so that some of the 

 branches were covered with snow all winter. In the spring the tops of all these trees that were 

 exposed were killed ; and below the snow, sound blossom-buds and wood, so that both nursery 

 and other trees bore fruit. I did not keep a thermometer then, so that I cannot tell how cold it 

 was ; but the newspapers said it was many degrees below zero. 



In the fall of 1829 I began to keep a record of the thermometer three times a day, and found 

 that when it was 10 * or more below zero our Peach fruit-buds were killed. If the thermometer 

 was only three or four below zero, early in December, it caused more injury than five or six 

 degrees lower would in January or February. I also found that sudden thawing was a great 

 evil. As a general rule, the mornings after our coldest nights are clear, with a bright sun, till 

 about ten o'clock, when it clouds over for the rest of the day. I observed that trees which were 

 protected by some building from the morning sun, till after ten o'clock, saved some fruit-buds 

 even in our coldest winters, when on exposed trees all were killed. I saw an example of this 

 four or five years ago at the Shaker village nine miles east of us. One of the famihes had a fine 

 Peach orchard loaded with fruit in August, and was situated on the west side of a knoll that 

 protected it from the morning sun. Our buds about the city had been killed the previous winter. 



In the fall, some eight or nine years ago, I tied a bundle of straw around an Apricot tree and 

 a Nectarine that had born one or two seasons, in the same way you protect Rose bushes and 

 other tender things. They were seven or eight feet high. In the spring, when uncovered, they 

 were sound in wood and bud and bore fruit, while older Peach trees in the same garden, which 

 had been exposed all winter, bore no fruit, the buds having been killed. 



As to the protection of snow. — A few years ago, in November, I shortened the young wood of 

 my Peach trees and left the trimmings under the trees. In the winter, when the ground was 

 covered with three or four inches of snow, we had the thermometer low enough below zero to 

 kill the Peach buds. A few days after the snow melted away, and on examining the fruit-buds 

 on the trimmings that had been covered by snow, I found them all sound. Several years ago a 

 Scotchman told that his brother, who was gardener to Mr. Burden, of Troy, one fall laid down 

 some young Peach trees, that were ready to bear, by cutting off the roots on one side so that he 

 could bend them to the ground ; he then covered them with some Pine boughs, and in the winter 

 they were covered with snow. In the spring he righted them up, and they blossomed and bore 

 fruit, while other Peach trees near them, which had been exposed, bore none. 



Since I have kept a record our Plum-buds haye been killed twice, and the Cherry once. 

 About four miles below this city there is a rapid, of a mile or more, in the Mohawk, which does 

 eeze once in twenty years. The banks are a hundred feet or more above the riv 

 who lives there, raises more or less Peaclies everj' j-ear, as the warmth given out fr 



