CLIMATOLOGY 17 



postpone for another year the purchase of his new 

 automobile. 



These two forms of bud killing have often been 

 confused in the discussions of peach climatology, 

 but such confusion is wholly unnecessary. Special 

 attention should be drawn to the fact that the killing 

 of peach buds by late spring frosts is distinctly a 

 local trouble, and that the localities seriously affected 

 are much less widely distributed than is popularly 

 supposed. There are thousands of square miles of 

 good peach country in North America where bud- 

 killing spring frosts are unknown, and thousands 

 of miles more where they are so infrequent as to be 

 almost negligible. There are other regions, to be 

 sure, where the crop is too often lost in this stage; 

 but on the whole the peach-growing industry has 

 suffered a serious slander in this matter. 



Winter freezing of buds cannot be prevented by 

 any methods which are practicable in commercial 

 orchards. In small private gardens, where a little 

 extra trouble and expense can be put to the prob- 

 lem, reasonably good results can be attained. These 

 methods all look toward the protection of the buds and 

 the young wood from the action of the cold weather. 

 The simplest attempts are made by wrapping the 

 fruiting branches of the trees just as they stand in 

 the garden, in much the same manner as rose bushes 

 are sometimes wrapped for winter. 



One of the commonest and best materials is corn 

 stalks, which are tied on the fruiting branches in 

 large bundles ; or the whole tree may be completely 

 encased in corn stalks until it becomes one immense 

 corn shock. Coarse swale hay is also used very 

 appropriately for this purpose. Other materials 

 which come in suitably to this undertaking are floor 

 mattings, old clothes, gunny sacks and newspapers. 



