14 HOUSE, GARDEN, AND FIELD 



III. JULY SHOOTS. 



The season of 1903 was unusually trying to the leaf- 

 expanses of my trees. Until after Easter the weather was 

 favourable to growth, and I have rarely seen such a pro- 

 fusion of blossom on the fruit-trees as I saw this spring 

 in Yorkshire, in the Severn valley, and in Somerset. Then 

 came a killing frost, with snow-showers and cutting winds 

 from north and east. The promise of the year was 

 blighted in a week, and the fruit-crop ruined. Other trees 

 besides fruit-trees suffered. When the horse-chestnut 

 leaves expanded, it was seen that many of them, and 

 especially those which had first broken from the bud, were 

 disfigured by brown patches, which lay in rows between 

 the lateral veins of the leaflets. A long course of windy 

 weather followed, and the rubbing of the leaves against 

 one another fretted the brown patches into holes, some- 

 times reducing the leaflet to a comb-like skeleton. 



In 1904 we had no frosts in early summer ; the flowering 

 trees put forth magnificent blooms. But there were high 

 winds at the time of leafing and afterwards. Horse- 

 chestnut leaves in exposed places were fretted almost as 

 badly as in 1903. I am now inclined to attribute more to 

 wind and less to frost than I did a year ago (June, 1904). 



A sycamore in the same garden and equally exposed to 

 wind, showed no holes or brown patches on its leaves. 

 Few trees of northern and central Europe bear wind so 

 well as the mountain-bred sycamore. But the flower- 

 spikes of the sycamore were nipped by the frost of 1903, 

 and very few " keys " were produced the following autumn. 

 Even the leaves of the sycamore, which endure wind so 

 well, are often attacked by mildews funguses which 

 fasten on them and form large black spots, and by galls. 



Oak is much injured by insects, more, I think, than any 

 other common tree. The leaves are often ruined by the 

 Tortrix-caterpillar ; galls form on the leaves or in the 

 buds, and in these galls are found the grubs of various 



