86 PACIFIC STATES FLORAL CONGRESS. 



grant. These are all-day bloomers flowers lasting several days. Angu- 

 liger has the sides of the stem cut in deep notches like the teeth of a 

 saw, is of a light green color, a winter bloomer, and bears small white, 

 fragrant flowers. This cactus, with Latifrons, called the Queen cactus, 

 and Hooperi, are among the finest of the white Phyllocacti. 

 San Francisco, Col. 



PROTECTION OF GARDENS FROM FROST. 



BY ALEXANDER G. MC ADIE. 



Much attention has been given in the past five years in this state 

 to the matter of protecting our citrus fruits from injury by frost. Dur- 

 ing the past two years more particularly the entire question of frost 

 fighting, with reference to deciduous as well as citrus fruits, has been 

 discussed and studied with some detail in various parts of the United 

 States. The interests involved in fruit-growing in this state are so 

 vast that even a very small margin of saving on each ranch amounts 

 in the aggregate to a vast sum. It is a difficult matter to estimate with 

 any degree of accuracy what the percentage of loss of prospective crop 

 by frost is in any year ; but with oranges, for example, where the frost 

 occurs about the time the fruit is ready for shipment, a rough estimate 

 may be ventured ; and from all of the various reports which have been 

 available to me during my experience of five years as Forecast Official 

 and Director or Assistant Director of the California Climate and Crop 

 Service, I would hazard the opinion that the total annual loss of citrus 

 fruit by frost has been reduced from about twenty per cent of the crop 

 to less than ten per cent. On a valuation of $10,000,000 this repre- 

 sents a saving of one million dollars. 



With deciduous fruits the problem is somewhat different. The 

 great danger to almonds, apricots, grapes, peaches, and prunes comes 

 with the frosts of March and April, and is to the buds or tender fruit, 

 and not, as with the oranges, the ripened fruit. Up to a certain point 

 orchardists agree that late spring frosts are beneficial in thinning out 

 surplus fruit. The damage depends as much upon the condition of 

 the tree almost as the degree and duration of the cold. That is to. say, 

 a sharp frost in the first or second week of April will do less damage 



the trees are fairly passed the blossoming period, and the fruit has 

 had a little time to set, than the same frosts would have caused about 

 the middle of March. 



I am not aware that the protection of gardens, both vegetable and 

 flower, has yet received any special attention; yet the interests repre- 

 sented are certainly very important in this state." In the present paper 



