2 THE CONNECTICUT POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



The past season has been one of abrupt and marked changes 

 from normal conditions, with results fully as marked. The loss 

 of the peach crop by the sudden freeze of last winter, predicted 

 by President Piatt in his address of a year ago, was fully as 

 great as anticipated. Connecticut had but few peaches to sell. 

 Winter was succeeded by an unusually early spring, which 

 caused all fruit trees to bloom much in advance of the average 

 date. During the time of bloom came the dreaded frost to be 

 expected at that early season, but in case of the apple, at least, 

 without the expected result of totally killing the blossoms. It 

 might be said that the rather heavy blooming of apples was of 

 itself rather unexpected after the enormous crop of 1902. As 

 a further development, just with the planting season commenced 

 the unprecedented drouth of over fifty days with less than one 

 inch of rainfall, and this again followed by wet and cool weather 

 a great part of the remainder of the growing season, completing 

 a year which as a whole has been very unsatisfactory to the 

 general farmer and fruit grower. 



In addition to the very unusual season the fruit grower also 

 had another experience, not unknown before, but much more 

 severe than usual, in the continued presence of plant aphis, 

 or plant lice, on trees, particularly young apple and pear trees. 

 On many orchards set last spring they almost entirely checked 

 all growth and put them back a full year, if indeed they did 

 not weaken the trees to such an extent that the latter will not 

 survive the extreme cold of the present winter. There is some 

 encouragement to believe that the pest will not be as serious the 

 coming summer. 



As a slight offset to these drawbacks was the partial apple 

 crop already referred to, and for which good prices were 

 obtained ; this last also applied to all horticultural products of 

 the year. From this apple crop, the most important information 

 derived, aside from effects of frost upon bloom, was the fact 

 that the largest crops were from orchards that have had good 

 care the several previous years. Uncared for trees, as a rule, 

 bore but little fruit, indicating that continuous good care Avill, 

 to a certain extent, overcome the biennial-bearing habit. In 

 this connection it may be stated that substantial progress has 

 been made, the past season, in the use of the box as an apple 

 package. In nearly all sections its increased use is reported, 

 and usually with profit. There is not yet that uniformity of 



