152 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Many Rhododendrons, usually tender, stood wholl}- uninjured. 

 Two cases are reported where cedars of Lebanon stood without the 

 least injury. 



Cryptomerias, were in some cases uninjured, where Norway 

 spruce were killed. 



Among Rhododendrons there were remarkable cases of this 

 exceptional killing. 



Of plants of the same varieties, growing side by side so that their 

 branches interlaced, and apparently equally healthy and vigorous, 

 the one was killed, the other uninjured, and this by no means in 

 single instances. The broad-leaved box which is usuallj' injured, 

 generally stood wholly unharmed. 



Among large Norway spruces, growing side by side, one was 

 killed, the other uninjured. 



In evergreen hedges, man}' of long standing were totallj'" de- 

 stroyed, and in others plants were killed all through the hedge, 

 one plant was taken and the other left. In manj^ cases this de- 

 struction may have been owing to drought caused b}' the situation 

 of the hedge, or by the neighborhood of large trees which exhausted 

 the moisture ; in others, the presence of peculiar currents of cut- 

 ting winds may have caused the loss, but there are many cases 

 wholly inexplicable. 



In hemlocks, among which the destruction was almost universal, 

 there were remarkable exceptions ; in some situations this tree 

 both'in hedges and isolated, standing uninjured. 



Large standard Rhododendrons, protected by wooden houses, and 

 thus sheltered from both loind and sxin^ were quite as badly killed as 

 the same varieties which stood wholly unprotected. 



These instances might be multiplied a hundred-fold, and some 

 of these exceptional cases go far to lead us to the conclusion that 

 the cause of the destruction is wholly inexplicable. But in a 

 majority of cases we can arrive at a more satisfactory conclusion. 



Your Committee have thus given a statement of the facts which 

 have come under their observation. But it is not so easy to sug- 

 gest the means of providing against such disastrous conditions in 

 the future. "We cannot alter the laws of nature or control the 

 vicissitudes of the wonthor, but we can control in some measure 

 the condition of trees and plants. True, " the wiutl bloweth where 

 it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but can'st not tell 

 whence it comcth and whither it goeth." Still we have learned that 



