200 ANNUAL REPORT. 



of the sun are directed from 12 to 2 o'clock in the afternoon the 

 injury is done, and there is everything to indicate that it is done 

 by the rays of the sun. It is not done in the summer time, that 

 is sure; I think it is done in the severe cold weather. Most 

 likely in February and March. It is possible this matter of pro- 

 tecting our trees has not engrossed our attention as it should 

 have done. It is one thing that we shall attend to more closely 

 from this time forward. I hope I will have sense enough to pro- 

 tect the outside of the tree. The chicken plan is all right where 

 it can be carried out, but of course with some 30 acres of orchard 

 to protect from the codling moth and curculio it would take a 

 good many chickens. 



Mr. Gideon. I have had some experience and examined into 

 this sunscald to quite an extent. I have not yet seen a sunscald 

 on any portion of a tree where it was shaded during the heat of 

 summer. My theory is that it is done by the hottest weather 

 in the summer. It seems to me if done in the winter various 

 portions of the tree would be sunscalded. An open top tree it 

 never shows, except on that side of the tree where the sun can 

 not strike it when the leaves are on. If it was dcffie after the 

 leaves were off we would see where it would strike through and 

 attack large branches on the opposite side; when the leaves were 

 off the sun could shine through. I don't think the sun ever 

 effects a tree after the leaves are off from that time until the hot 

 weather comes again. 



Mr. Tuttle. I can indorse what Mr. Gideon says in regard to 

 that injury to the tree. I have watched that thing a great deal, 

 and if I were going to protect the tree at all (and it is very de- 

 sirable that a tree should be protected while the buds are drawn 

 up as they should be) I should protect them in the summer. It 

 is the strong heat of the summer in the warmest part of the day 

 which strikes the body of the tree. This work is not all done in 

 one season, but it is work that is going on for years. You will 

 find where the foliage of the tree does not shade the body, the 

 tree flattens, the growth is obstructed, and gradually the bark 

 becomes hardened and injured. Then we will have a severe, cold 

 winter, in which the injury will show itself by the rupture of the 

 bark. The cold acts exactly in the same way as the heat, to drive 

 out every particle of moisture from the tree upon that side where 

 the injury has been done in the summer. The difficulty is fre- 

 quently finished up in the winter. I know in the Southern 

 states — in Georgia and Alabama — they have to put boards up on 



