402 



The Canadian Horticulturist. 



who sent reports of injury to the fruit crop, the reports might have been much 

 more accurate, but so long as statements of this nature are based on personal 

 sensation or on the thickness of ice formed on still water, and not on the careful 

 reading of first-class thermometers properly placed, such reports will be of little 

 value. 



The estimates made of the injury to the fruit crop were mostly based on 

 the supposed intensity of the frost on the night of the 12th, but the minimum 

 temperature of that night was only 20.8°, and was not as low as on other nights 

 which followed. On four nights during the second period referred to the tem- 

 perature was two or three degrees lower than on the night of the 12th, iand thes? 

 were the nights on which the greatest injury occurred, because injury to vege- 

 tation is mostly in proportion to the severity of the frost without regard to its 

 duration, while the thickness of ice formed on still water is mainly in the pro- 

 portion to the length of tiitie the temperature is below the freezing point. 



As a basis for future estimates of damage by spring frosts I would suggest 

 that each of the conductors of our local experiment .stations be supplied with a 

 set of meteorological instruments necessary for this purpose, and that such 

 instructions be given the conductors as may enable the Fruit Growers' Associ- 

 ation to obtain and publish a more satisfactory report than has hitherto been 



obtainable. 



The meteorological service of Canada will, I believe, supply the necessary 

 instruments, forms, etc., gratis, on certain easily-fulfilled conditions. 



The temperatures given in the foregoing paper are correct for this locality 

 only, but the same principles apply in all directions. 



Lindsay. Thos. Beall. 



The alliums, grape hyacinths and jonquils look the best when grown with 

 from three to six bulbs in a pot, their delicate flowers looking the best when 

 grown in masses. The hyacinths and narcissus can be grown singly, or a couple 

 can be planted together in a five or six-inch pot. If brought up from the cellar 

 at intervals of two weeks, ten or a dozen pots will keep a window bright all win- 

 ter with bloom, as a pot will average to remain a beauty nearly a month in a 

 moderately heated room. — American Agriculturist. 



A Home-made Potato Sorter.— The sketch herewith shows a home- 

 made device for rapidly and easily sort- 

 ing potatoes as they are taken from the 

 rows. The upper incline has crosswise, 

 rounded strips, with spaces between as a 

 flooring. As the potatoes pass down the 

 incline the small ones fall into the lower 

 incline, the large tubers falling into one 

 basket and the smaller ones into the other. 

 The rounded strips do not bruise the 

 potatoes as they gently pass down from one end to the other. — Amer. Agr. 



