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28 ANNUAL REPORT. 
injury to trees in severe winters by top killing, and they 
yprouted again from the root. He lost only two trees last 
winter. His soil is sandy, and cultivated, and slopes east. 
Mr. Ford related his experience, which is very interesting 
but unfortunate, and would leave the impression that his was 
a very unfavorable locality for fruit trees. 
His loss last winter was from root killing. He had a Tran- 
scendent on one side of a walk and two Tetofskys on the 
other. The Tetofskys are dead, and the Transcendent is 
alive and bore full last year. He wants to know what made 
the difference between the two sides of the walk if the crab 
is not the hardiest. 
Mr. Hoffman answered: Because there is a pond of water 
near the walk where the Transcendent stands. ae 
Mr. Fuller, of Litchfield, said his nursery was on soil of light 
sandy loam, in a most exposed place on open prairie. Wher- 
ever snow covered the trees they were preserved, and where 
most exposed they perished ; the same was true of White Elm, 
Mountain Ash, &c. It was the hard and repeated freezing of 
the sandy soil that killed them. 
Mr. G. P. Peffer, of Pewaukee, Wis., was introduced as a 
delegate from the Wisconsin Horticultural Society, and after- 
ward elected an honorary member, and invited to participate 
in the debates. 
He said it is always well to consider the soil and situation 
in which trees were planted. Cold affects a tree very much 
the same as heat, and will in like manner evaporate the sap ; 
and a root being exposed to a certain degree of cold is certain 
to perish. He had ascertained by actual measurement before 
and in time of a hard freeze that the root and trunk of a tree 
will shrink nearly one-third by freezing; probably by the 
evaporation of the sap. Related his experience with ashes. 
The soil in his nursery was clay loam, and very stiff. He ap- 
plied ashes liberally to a block for trees and incorporated 
them with the soil by plowing and harrowing till the soil 
became loose, pliable, and would not retain water. The trees 
on this ground grew well and looked better than any others he 
had ; but last winter they root-killed, while those on land not 
prepared with ashes were not so injured. The varieties killed 
were the hardiest he had. 
Mr. Harris thought the application of ashes on clay soils 
made them more porous, and in the absence of fall rains it was 
in a condition to invite deep freezings, which extracts the sap 
from the roots ; there being no moisture in the ground when 
they thaw out, death must ensue. The roots freeze harder 
when encased in a dry substance thau a wet. A bucket of 
water would freeze over in a cellar before vegetables would 
receive injury. 
