28 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



be attributed the cliininutiuii of the iVuit-crup as compared with tlie 

 previous year. The night of the 8th of September, a severe 

 frost occurred at Walpole, literally freezing the exposed clusters 

 of grai)es on the vines, so that they were full of crystals of ice; ami 

 about the 22d, Concord and the vicinity, where grapes are largely 

 grown, was visited by a heavy frost, which destroyed many tons 

 of grapes, giving rise to anxious inquiries whether frozen grapes 

 would make good vinegar. 



Owing to the warmth and dryness of the season, the time of 

 ripening of our fruits has been hastened by about two weeks. 



In reviewing the season, the most prominent facts, as heretofore, 

 seem to be the nice adjustment of the forces of Nature, and the slight 

 departure from the average required to make the difterence be- 

 tween a propitious and an unpropitious season ; and, recognizing how 

 small an additional change w^ould be necessary to ruin totally not 

 only our fruit-crops, but to destroy, loot and branch, the trees and 

 plants on which they grow, we cannot but acknowledge the good- 

 ness of that Almighty Hand which has set to these forces " a bound 

 that they may not pass over." 



The excellent and abundant crop of cherries with which we were 

 favored was remarkably free from the larvaj of the curculio, which 

 so frequently attacks it: while, in singular contrast, the codling 

 moth was perhaps never more abundant; it being dirticult, in the 

 early part of the season, to find a dish of a dozen pears or apples 

 on our tables without one or more wormy specimens. Those 

 shown at the Annual Exhibition, and later, were, however, more 

 free from this insect. In this connection, we think it appropriate 

 to mention the trap contrived by Mr. Thomas Wier of Lacon, 111., 

 for the destruction of the cln-ysalides of this insect. It Mill be 

 remembered by the delegates to the American Pomological So- 

 ciety as having been exhibited at their meeting, and pronounced 

 by the committee a])|»ointcd to examine it, of which ]\[r. Charles 

 Downing was chairman, an ellectual remedy for this insect, — per- 

 haps the worst of all this class of pests to the fruit-grower. 



Our pear-trees have hitherto been more exempt from the attacks 

 of insects than almost any other tree; but, the past season, an 

 insect* entirely unknown here, and which we hope may continue 

 to be, was shown at the rooms of the society by Mr. G, F. Ji. 

 Leighton of Norfolk, Va., together with limbs of pear-trees, half an 

 inch in diameter, which it had cut off. It was discovered only in 



♦ Oncidcres cingulatus. — the giidler. — Sec Packard's Guide to the Study of Insects, 

 p. 496. 



