36 WORCESTER COUiNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1872. 



changed to some extent within the memory of the generation still living. 

 There is less snow in Winter, and consequentl}- it disappears earlier in 

 Spring. Periods of alternate warmth and cold, frequently succeed each 

 other in March, April and May, and yet our seasons are obviously growing^ 

 later and later. The past season in respect to the permanence of cold in 

 the Spring months was exceptional. It will be remembered that Win- 

 ter was prolonged with unusual severity into and even through the month 

 of April, and the frost did not wholly come out of the ground till far into 

 May. The effect of this was to keep back vegetation, and, as regards the 

 fruit buds of the apple, to retard their swelling and development till 

 danger of late frosts had past.* 



Another fact having an important bearing upon the apple crop of the 

 present year is that with the exception of the ravages of the canker 

 worm, the operations of insect enemies of the apple have been less de- 

 structive than usual. The abundant rains have evidently interfered with 

 the summer campaigns of the codling moth and the curculio, and early 

 compelled the caterpillar to 



" Fold hi.s tent like the Ar.ab and .silently steal away." 



And now the true answer to the question we have been considering — 

 as to the abundance of the present apjile crop as compared with some 

 others — I conceive to be : 



1. That the present is the even or bearing year for grafted apples. 



2. There were no frosts in Sjiring after the flowering of the trees. 



3. Insect injuries to the apple tree and its fruit (those of the canker 

 worm excepted) have been comparatively few. 



In certain portions of this State, during the past season, the ravages 

 of the canker worni upon apple ti'ees have been severe. Those, however, 

 who have api)lied the proper remedies and preventives, have had, as they 

 alwa3s will, the satisfaction of victory over this worst enemy of the 



*Since the above was written my attention has been called to some remarks by a veteran fanner at 

 the last November meeting of the Massachusetts Board of Agriculture, at Fall River, as reported by 

 Mr. Secretary Flint in his Report for 1872, illustrating from an experience and observation of " three 

 score years and ten and upwards,"' the eflfeot of late frosts upon the apple crop. After alluding to the 

 enormous crops of apples fifty or sixty years ago, when the snow lay much later upon the ground than 

 it usually does now, and particularly to the crop of 1815, when the great September gale left apples 

 piled on top of each other under the trees, and contrasting those seasons with more recent ones, in re- 

 gard to snow in Winter and frost in Spring, he related the case of the owner of a large orchard, who 

 artificially, though unintentionally kept back his trees from blossoming until very late in Spring. This 

 orchard had always blossomed profusely, but for many years bore no fruit. One winter, after the 

 ground had frozen hard, the owner turned his sheep into this orchard and carrie<l into it a large 

 quantity of rubbish, straw, corn-stalks and the like, which covered the ground all over. When Spring 

 came, it was so late before his trees bloomed that the owner thought they were all dead. At length, 

 however, the frost came out of the ground, and the orchard blossomed profusely and bore abundantly. 



