70 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



below zero, all the buds were winter killed. He had examined 

 the point, and satisfied himself and Mr. Downing that the theory 

 was incorrect. Why is it that buds are killed with the temperature 

 at a certain point some years and not others? Mr. Moore has 

 partly explained it. What is the effect of cold, — does it rupture 

 the sap-vessels ? It would appear that it does, from the fact that 

 sometimes when trees have been winter killed the sap will collect 

 so as to spirt oat on pressure. Undoubtedl}^ trees freeze through, 

 as those who have chopped wood know, but what the particular 

 injurious effect is, and why it is produced some times and not 

 others he did not know. 



If we cannot get a grape that will stand on the trellis through 

 the winter, shall we give up the attempt to cultivate grapes? 

 Grape vines in houses require to be covered, and it is no more 

 work to cover them out doors than in the house. Even in those 

 countries which are generall}^ considered best adapted to the grape 

 the vines ai'e sometimes covered. In Turin, Mr. French said, 

 grape vines are taken down and covered just as they are here. He 

 keeps his Concords up, but has taken down and covered Delaware, 

 lona, and Rogers' H^-brids. He did not think the trouble of cov- 

 ering too great a tax, but if we can get varieties of equal excel- 

 lence that do not need covering, so much the better. In mild cli- 

 mates both plants and animals feel the cold. 



Mr. Manning was asked to state Dr. Van Mons' theory in 

 regard to raising seedling fruits, and replied that though Dr. Van 

 Mons did undoubtedly have a very elaborate theory, according to 

 which the best results were to be expected by commencing with 

 wild fruits, and ameliorating them through several successive gen- 

 erations, after which only the finest fruits would be produced, his 

 researclies into the results effected by Van Mons in accordance 

 with this theory had been extremely unsatisfactory, owing to the 

 fact that, like all other lovers of good fruit, he was a collector as 

 well as an originator, and it was impossible to distinguish between 

 the varieties raised by him and those raised by others. Moreover, 

 fiuits sent out by him' as his own seedlings bore evidence of par- 

 entage from some of the old varieties, instead of the distinct 

 character which we should expect from seedlings raised in accord- 

 ance with his theory. The Queen of the Low Countries, for in- 

 stance, which Van Mons claimed as a seedling of his own, and 

 extolled as being " without doubt the most perfect of pears," is 



