332 The Principles of Fruit-growing. 



We have already seen (page 322) that at Ithaca, 

 New York, apricots, peaches and other fruits were 

 able to endure a temperature of 18, even when 

 the buds were well swollen. In respect to the 

 variations in the effects of winter temperatures, 

 McCluer* writes from the Illinois Experiment Sta- 

 tion as follows : 



"Here, we ordinarily think of 14 or 15 below 

 zero as fatal to the peach crop, and as we often 

 have a lower temperature than that but few peaches 

 are planted. During the winter of 1894-5 the ther- 

 mometer several times ranged below 20, and once 

 sank to 25 below zero, and yet only half the peach 

 buds were killed, and the trees produced a good 

 crop the season following. Last winter, with a 

 minimum temperature of only 5 below zero, fully 

 one -third of the peach buds were killed. I do not 

 know just what conditions made the buds more 

 hardy one season than another ; neither do I know 

 why part of the buds on a tree should be more 

 hardy than the rest. Even in the axil of the same 

 leaf one bud may be killed and the other live. 



"Other organic substances show the same differ- 

 ences. In a half-bushel basket of potatoes exposed 

 to the cold in a cellar, I have often found frozen 

 tubers scattered through the basket and the rest not 

 frozen. In the blossom -buds of the cherry and plum 

 one or more may often be found killed, while the 

 rest have escaped. 



*G. W. McCluer, Garden and Forest, ix. 209 (May 20, 1896) 



