HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 283 



has given more direct thought and attention to the cultivation of 

 fruit in favorable and unfavorable circumstances; perhaps, than 

 any one man in the northwest, and he wishes the privilege of 

 speaking to you for fifteen minutes. I refer to Mr. Gaylord, of 

 Iowa. 



SUN-SCALD. 



By Edson Gaylord, of Nora Springs, Ioica. 



I thank you most kindly for giving me this opportunity to 

 talk a few moments with this intelligent body of horticultural- 

 ists, who have gathered here from Manitoba to Iowa. The sub- 

 ject I have been requested to present here, will, upon examina- 

 tion, be found to be one which all apple growers cannot afford to 

 pass without serious consideration; as it embraces the grave causes 

 that, more than all others, hinder successful apple growing in the 

 northwest, viz: sun-scald. We hope that in this investigation we 

 shall be able to present a remedy so plain and practical that a 

 child need not err in applying it with entire success. 



In settling at Nora Springs, in Iowa, in 1853, we found a few 

 hundred acres of the most noble of deciduous trees I ever had the 

 pleasure to behold. There were ash over one hundred feet high, 

 oaks and black walnuts, nearly, if not quite, as tall, and many over 

 four feet through at the ground, and quite a number of each of the 

 latter fully five feet through. We had many fine butternut trees 

 nearly as tall, and as perfect, and as free from sun-scald as could 

 be. The town was located near the centre of this grove. The 

 old trees fast disappeared before the woodman's axe, and in 

 their place there came up hundreds of young trees, many of 

 which were left along the streets, in vacant lots and corners, 

 for shade and ornament. These were mostly trimmed up, and 

 in a few years were nearly all found with more or less of 

 of their trunks leaning from the sun, and in all these cases the 

 bark and sap wood was found dead and rotten, often rotten to the 

 centre of the trunk. What strikes the casual observer with sur- 

 prise is these unerring facts as they present themselves, viz: all 

 trees susceptible to sun scald, such as butternut, blackwalnut, 

 maple, hickory, ash, cherry, and every variety of our common ap- 

 ple are found dying or dead if they lean from the sun. While all 

 of the above varieties, and many others, if found leaning to the 

 sun, are perfectly sound and healthy. Even where they start from 

 the same stump and grow to the sun they are invariably found 



