16 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1896. 



is there not abundant evidence that the yield of Fall and Winter 

 Apples is likely to be excessive, as is usual in what we call the 

 bearing, and know to be an alternate year. Moreover their 

 quality is superior, being remarkably free from external blemish 

 or anv serious ravage of insect. Your Secretary is inclinins: to 

 a belief, in some modification of climate, in so far as the gigantic 

 forces of Nature can be affected by the comparatively puny 

 efforts of man. Thermometer and hygrometer may contradict; 

 but there do seem to be more marked divisions of the seasons 

 into wet and dry than were the rule in times that some of us 

 can distinctly recall. A. D. 1895, there was a protracted, 

 severe drought, for weeks unbroken until its close in an almost 

 torrential rain on the 12th and 13th of October. Is there a 

 worse foe to fecundity, aye, to vitality even than Drought? 

 Is there anything more essential, indispensable even to an 

 ample harvest from Orchard and Vineyard than a copious supply 

 of that element whereof their fruits are so largely constituted? 

 Supplement such deficiency by a sequence of days like those 

 which broke the record for intense heat in mid-August last, and 

 how much vitality is left to challenge the icy blasts of Winter I 

 Summing them up, — excessive crops, burning suns, continued 

 lack of water, deficient supply of manurial nutriment ! should 

 there be wonder that 



"The eartli uo longer brought forth grass, or that the herb ceased 

 to yield seed after his kind, or that the tree aud viae stopped yielding 

 fruit, whose seed was in itself after his kind ! " 



The peculiarity of the present season, regarded poniologically, 

 is the general local failure of Grape and Pear to yield an abun- 

 dant harvest. Perhaps we are not warranted in counting, with 

 absolute certainty, upon the Grape ; although during the exist- 

 inj; jreneralion the seasons have been few wherein generous 

 clusters of all the choicer varieties have not rewarded our hope 

 and patience. But how shall we explain the almost entire defi- 

 ciency of Pears, — of varieties that for the lifetime of a majority 

 in this audience, were to be counted upon with quite as much 

 assurance as the precession of the equinoxes, — or the alterna- 

 tions of heat and cold. The trunks of Cherry and Peach, of the 

 Maple even, may split wide open under exposure to extreme 



