No. 4.] FRUIT GROWING. 167 



tinues to produce its annual crop of fruit. The pear has few 

 insect enemies and seldom sutlers severely in either fruit or 

 tree. A disease called pear blight has made its appearance 

 occasionally and in some sections of the State, causing seri- 

 ous damage to the trees, though it has been slight in New 

 England compared with its effects farther south and west, 

 where large orchards have been totally destroyed in a single 

 season. It makes its appearance usually during June and 

 July, and is seen by the leaves turning black. Sometimes it 

 is confined to a single limb or branch, at others several limbs 

 are affected at once, showing the whole tree is diseased. In 

 the former case generally the tree may be saved by cutting 

 off the diseased portion down to sound wood, but in the 

 latter the tree should be removed at once from the orchard. 



The peach of late years has l)ecome one of the most unre- 

 liable of our tree fruits. Some of the older members of this 

 Board will remember when the peach was grown in almost 

 every garden and when this most delicious of all the New 

 England fruits was so abundant that large quantities went to 

 waste. Various reasons have been assigned for the failure 

 of the peach, none of which have proved entirely satisfac- 

 tory or suggested a remedy which has restored the tree to its 

 former vigor or fruitfulness. The suggestions of worn-out 

 soil, change of climate or extreme cold do not solve the 

 question, as the trees have been grown on virgin soil with no 

 better success. The weather records show but slight varia- 

 tion in climate, and while some have gone so far as to declare 

 they could tell the exact degree of cold that would destroy 

 the blossom buds of the peach, facts show that in 1884 the 

 buds were almost entirely killed throughout this State the 

 week before Christmas, although the mercury had not 

 dropped to zero, and reports from Michigan show that peach 

 trees exposed to a winter temperature of twenty-eight degrees 

 below zero came out in good condition in the spring and 

 bore an abundant crop of fruit. 



Formerly peaches were grown almost entirely on seedling 

 stocks, planting the pits from the best specimens. Later the 

 nurserymen secured some superior varieties among these 

 seedlino-s and buddino- them on seedling stocks, introduced 

 them to the trade, and for many years the growers have been 



