STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 205 



time during the month of March and die. I will go farther and 

 say that there is a great difference in the bark of trees; there is 

 a great difference in the cell tissue; some trees throw off less 

 moisture than others. Take the Russians for an example. As 

 a general rule, the naturalist will distinguish the difference in 

 trees that grow in one country and those that grow in a warmer 

 country. The cell structure is different as well as the covering 

 of the bark. Everything is made to close and keep this moisture 

 in. But if this food becomes exhausted the tree dies. When we 

 examine the Eussian varieties, we find a different class of trees 

 altogether. We find thicker bark, the cells are covered arid cal- 

 culated to go through a long winter. My remedy for this diffi- 

 culty is to keep my trees growing and give them all the nourish- 

 ment I can. After the terminal bud is formed then comes the 

 process of filling up the sap cells; then evaporation commences 

 and keeps on, and I doubt whether there is any sap in solution 

 in the tree in the winter. It passess off and is all assimilated, 

 and the tree goes into the winter in a condition so that it will 

 not rupture. In my orchard I aim to have my trees in good 

 condition in the fall. I want the buds all out full, and want the 

 bark smooth, not all shrunken in. 



Gen. Le Due. How are you going to make it that way? 



Mr. Pearce. I feed my trees. 



Mr. Whipple. Have you accomplished the object? 



Mr. Pearce. I have with some trees. Every tree that I have 

 taken care of and mulched has done well; but I may be all 

 wrong. 



Mr. Gideon. I think you are getting off on to science. 



Mr. Smith. I had some experience which I would like to 

 relate. I had a few rows of grafts, Red Astrachan, Duchess, 

 Perry Russet and Transcendents. On the west and south side 

 were a lot of grapevines. The trees were all in a good healthy 

 condition, to all appearances, on the first of December. The 

 snow drifted over the grapevines until it was something like 

 three feet deep and came to the tops of the trees. Toward the 

 north end the snow was all blown off the ground. I noticed that 

 along in February the ends of those trees looked dry and too 

 dark-colored to be healthy; I cut some of them off and I noticed 

 that they showed a dark color between the wood and the bark 

 In the spring when the snow was all off, those at the south end 

 tliat had been buried in the snowdrift, started to grow as high 

 up as the snow was on them; toward the north end of the rows 



