THE CANADIAN HORTICULTURIST. 



157 



feet, but did not bear any fruit. An- 

 other plant was pinched until it formed 

 a compact mass of intermingling side 

 shoots eight feet square, and it bore 

 sixteen squashes. The present year, a 

 muskmelon plant thus pinched in covers 

 the space allotted to it, and it has set 

 twenty-three specimens of fruit, the 

 most of which have been pinched off. 

 The pinching causes many lateral 

 branches, which latter produce the 

 female or fertile blossoms, while the 

 main vines only produce the male blos- 

 soms. The difference in favor of the 

 yield of an acre of melons, treated by 

 this pinching process, may easily 

 amount to 100 barrels." 



HOW TO SECURE HARDINESS IN 

 OUR TREES. 



(From Address of President Barry, before the Western 

 New York Horticultural Society). 



Hardiness, or the power to resist 

 extreme cold, is generally recognized 

 as a quality of the first importance. 

 When a new variety of fruit or a new 

 ornamental tree or plant is introduced, 

 the firet enquiry made is about its 

 hardiness. In such climates as ours, 

 it is the one indispensable quality. 

 What, then, can the cultivator do to 

 promote hardiness ? He can do much ; 

 first, and above all, our land must be 

 dry, that is, absolutely free from stag- 

 nant moisture, either naturally, or 

 made so by underdraining. We all 

 know that plants grown on low, rich, 

 moist lands are filled with watery 

 fluids, which render them peculiarly 

 susceptible to injury from frost. We 

 often see plants on low, moist gi'ounds 

 killed by an early frost, when on adja- 

 cent dry ground, only a few feet dis- 

 tant, they escaped. Vegetable physio- 

 logists have adopted the axiom, '* That 

 the power of plants to resist cold is in 

 the inverse ratio of the rapidity with 

 which the fluids circulate," and '* that 

 the liability of the fluids of plants to 



freeze is greater in proportion to the 

 size of the cells." That is, the less 

 water there is in the fluids of plants, 

 and the smaller the cells, the greater is 

 their power to resist cold. This is in 

 hannony with all our experience. This 

 is the reason why such destruction has 

 fallen upon Western plantations. I 

 have seen orchards at the West, on low, 

 rich lands, frozen while in full leaf, so 

 that they looked perfectly black and 

 dead. They were full of watery fluids 

 when overtaken by the frost. The 

 Chairman of the Wisconsin State Fruit 

 Committee reports that " the exposed 

 crowns of many of the highest lime- 

 stone bluffs in that State, from 100 to 

 400 feet above the adjacent valley, pro- 

 duce as perfect orchards as can be de- 

 sired, up to latitude 44J°, where a large 

 variety of our 



EASTERN APPLES AND PEARS 



are permanently successful ; while in 

 the valley below nothing but the Sibe- 

 rians or Duchess of Oldenburg will 

 stand. This is the experience all over 

 the West, and it is ours only that in 

 our milder climate it is not so marked. 

 In the second place soil must possess 

 sufficient fertility to produce a moderate 

 healthy growth. Trees or plants that 

 are underfed become stunted, and are 

 neither useful nor beautiful. The sooner 

 they die the better. Those that are 

 overfed make a rank, watery gi-owth, 

 which does not ripen, and is not in a 

 condition to resist cold. These ex- 

 tremes are by no means uncommon in 

 the treatment of trees. As a general 

 thing, the starvation process is more 

 common, but it is also very common to 

 apply manure to excess. To maintain 

 trees in a state of health and vigor, 

 yielding their maximum of utility or 

 beauty, requires both care and skill in 

 the application of fertilizei-s and the 

 treatment of the soil. In the manage- 

 ment of fruit trees, over-cropping is a 



