V. KEPORT ON INJURY TO FRUIT TREES DURING 

 THE WINTER OF 1895-6. 



S. A. BEACH AND C. P. CLOSE. 



The winter of 1895-96 caused an unusual loss to New York 

 fruit-growers by the winter-killing of fruit buds and fruit trees. 

 It was especially destructive in those regions where the less 

 hardy kinds of fruit, such as plums, quinces, sweet cherries, 

 peaches and apricots are grown in commercial orchards. At 

 the Geneva Experiment Station the fruit buds of apricots, 

 peaches and some of the more tender plums were killed by the 

 cold weather of January 6 and 7, 1896. The cold of February 

 17 and 18 was even more severe, the mercury falling as low as 

 21° below zero. This killed the fruit buds of sweet cherries, and, 

 with rare exceptions, those of the European and Japanese plums 

 which had escaped the previous cold snap uninjured. Pears 

 were injured to some extent in wood as well as in fruit buds. 

 Native plums and sour cherries were about the only stone fruits 

 which carried fruit buds uninjured through the winter and bore 

 a crop of fruit the following summer. Soon it became known 

 that similar injury to fruit trees had been experienced generally 

 throughout the state. As this condition appeared to afford an 

 excellent opportunity for studying the comparative hardiness 

 of the different varieties of fruit which are cultivated in New 

 York State, the Station Horticulturist undertook to collect in- 

 formation in this line by instituting correspondence with local 

 observers in every part of the state. 



Letters were addressed to every supervisor in the state, ex- 

 cept those in cities, asking each one to name some good ob- 

 server for his town who would report to the Station the names 

 of the varieties of fruit which were grown in the town either 

 for home use or for market, and the amount of winter injury 



