43 



pears and apples were the heaviest sufferers for the State as 

 a whole. The counties of the State, ranking them in order of 

 greatest damage done to all fruits, were as follows: Berk- 

 shire, Hampden, Franklin, Bristol, ISTorfolk, Middlesex, 

 Hampshire, Worcester and Essex equal, Barnstable and 

 Plymouth. There were no reports on fruits from Dukes and 

 ISTantucket counties. 



Teee Fruits, Set and Deop. 

 For the State as a whole the returns indicate that the set 

 of tree fruits was 57.7 per cent of the bloom. Frosts in 

 Berkshire County were evidently very injurious, although 

 the small number of reports from this county detract some- 

 what from the value of the deductions. The figures at hand 

 give the per cent of blossoms which formed fruit in com- 

 parison with total bloom as follows : Barnstable, 75 ; Hamp- 

 shire, 75; Plymouth, 71.6; Hampden, 62.5; Essex, 60; Mid- 

 dlesex, ,57.6; Franklin, 56.2; Bristol, 50; Worcester, 47.5; 

 Xorfolk, 25 ; Berkshire, 5. In general, the drop has been 

 fully an average, although many reported it as just begin- 

 ning. This is doubtless due to the drought, which is now 

 becoming felt, although frost injury caused considerable 



