The Canadian Horticulturist. 4°^. 



NOTES FOR MAY MONTH, 1895. 



^HE following notes were suggested by the meteorological peculiari- 

 ties of the month of May, and by some of the !effects thereby pro- 

 duced. The chief peculiarities of the month were the intense heat of 

 the first eleven days, and the high winds, and dry, cold weather of the 

 following two weeks. 



Successful fruit [growing depends largely upon the stability of the 

 normal range of temperature. Any excess above or below that range, 

 especially during the growing season, often means partial, and sometimes total 

 loss of a valuable crop ; and this range was exceeded to an extraordinary extent 

 during May month. 



When the following figures are carefully examined and compared there 

 seems good reason for believing that the great injury to the fruit crop this season 

 should be attributed much more to the extraordinary heat of the first eleven 

 days than to the frosts which followed. 



The latter part of May is generally much warmer than the early part. The 

 highest temperature for the month having occurred,during the past sixteen years, 

 twelve times after the 20th, and the remaining four times before the 15th. The 

 average of mean temperature for the month for the same period was 53 24°. 

 Now, the mean temperature of the first eleven days of May this year was 64 74°, 

 or a daily temperature of 11.5° above the average for May month for the past 

 sixteen years, and the mean maximum temperature, which was 78 71° for these 

 same eleven days was exceeded in only two June months and four July months 

 for the same period. The cold, as measured by the thermometer during the 

 following two weeks was not excessive. The lowest temperature registered for 

 the month was 27.2° on the i6th. Lower temperatures were registered in each 

 of eight May months during the previous fifteen years. 



The first eleven days of May were, therefore, abnormally hot, the mean tem- 

 perature being 11.5° above the normal range. The re-action then set in and the 

 succeeding eleven days were abnormally cold ; the mean temperature being 

 only 42.52^ or 10.72° below the normal range, a decline of mean daily tempera- 

 ture from the first to the second period of 22.22^. 



It is not surprising, therefore, that the premature and unnatural develop- 

 ment of bud and blossom which took place in the early part of the month should 

 have been severely checked by the cold winds and low temperature of the suc- 

 ceeding eleven days. Indeed, it is a matter of great surprise that more injury 

 was not done. Had the temperature of the first eleven days been about as 

 usual for the season, vegetation would not Jiave been so far advanced and the 

 injury by the frosts which followed would have been but little noticed, as the 

 frosts, as before noted, were not unusually severe. 



If this branch of meteorology had been better understood by many of those 



