45 



and better plums than we ever had before. I do not think we had it lower than 35° 

 below zero last year. 



Mr. Saunders. — We were not so fortunate in the London district. My registering 

 thermometer registered 26° below zero. The mercury got to the end of the tube, and I 

 do not know how much farther it would have gone — I presume down to 32° or 33°. The 

 result was that it killed nearly all the plum trees in our section dead, or so nearly dead 

 that a few of them have struggled along here and there, making a very insignificant 

 growth, and died towards the end of the year — those that did not die in the winter. I 

 have not noticed any of the wild plums in the woods killed ; but I think all the culti- 

 vated varieties suffered, except in the city, where the trees were protected by houses. We 

 found some of our ornamental trees killed outright also. When the thermometer has not 

 been so low as that, we have usually lost some of our peach trees ; but last year the peach 

 trees survived where the plum trees were killed standing alongside of them. The same 

 might be said about some other varieties of fruit that are usually considered tender. In 

 grapes, for instance, although my friend Arnold's grapes have usually been hardy, yet in 

 one location on my grounds they were killed outright. The same varieties within a hun- 

 dred yards, not so much exposed, survived, and made a good growth this year. Some of 

 the cherries were very much injured. I lost several trees. They seemed to make a little 

 start in the spring, and then died out. But it did not affect the cherries in the same 

 disastrous way as the plums. Most of them survived. 



Mr. WiLLARD. — Had the plum trees to which you refer generally half a crop the 

 previous season 1 



Mr. Saunders. — The previous season these trees of mine had a very light crop on. 

 This would have been the fifth year if they had survived. 



Mr. Woodward. — Did not your plum trees, a year ago this last summer, lose their 

 leaves in that drought, and did not they start out with their leaves when the warm 

 weather came in the fall 1 



Mr. Saunders.— They lost their leaves quite early in the season, but their buds did 

 not start* out again to any extent in the fall. 



Mr. WiLLARD. — I think the losing of their leaves then weakened the trees, and that 

 then tlie severe weather last winter worked the disastrous effect on them. 



Mr. Woodward. — I believe it was not last winter, but the severe weather a year ago 

 Jast November that killed Mr. Saunders' trees. The sap was in the trees, and the frost 

 caught them and killed them with ease. I was up in Ohio last fall, the first of December, 

 and I saw grape vines there at the winter meeting by the armful, and you might examine 

 them and not find a live bud in a thousand — they were killed. We had it down to zero 

 in December, and they had it down there to five, six, and ten below zero. I never saw 

 such extreme cold in November as we had then. It did not affect the peach, because the 

 peach was done ripening ; it was in entire rest in November when the frost came. 



Mr. Beadle. — I think Mr. Bucke's trees are natives, are they not 1 



Mr. BucKE. — ^The only really cultivated plum tree I have is the Orange Gage. 



Judge Macpherson. — As far as Owen Sound is concerned, we had a frost in June 

 that killed a greater portion of the outdoor grapes and plums. I do not think the No- 

 vember frost affected us. My recollection is that we had snow on the front then, and that 

 it continued through the whole winter. We had very severe weather in the winter, 

 sometimes 35 and 36, I think, and a great deal of snow, but I do not think the trees were 

 injured by the winter at all. Mr. Boy was so singularly fortunate that all his grapes 

 did well this year. Mr. Holmes, who lives on the other side of the bay from Mr. Boy, 

 some little distance from the water, had as fine a crop of plums as you will ordinarily see. 

 There were a few other places where they were successful in raising plums, but the greater 

 portion of the plums and grapes were killed by that frost, and in fact all other trees, even 

 the Canada thistles were cut down by it, but I do not think the severe winter affected 

 them at all. Probably the reason for the difference is that in this part of the country 

 there is not so much snow as at Ottawa or Owen Sound, or it may be that owing to having 

 warm weather here the trees had commenced to bud out again. 



Mr. Arnold. ^ — -I feel somewhat inclined to endorse the theoi'y of Mr. Woodward as 

 to the November frost. I think the cold came upon us so suddenly that the trees were 



