SECRETARY'S REPORT. 9 



number of insects which constantly feed upon the foliage of the 

 cherry tree, and thus check the maturing of its new wood. 

 These remarks upon the cherry are not offered so much to 

 explain the peculiar failure of the last season, as because they 

 havp a bearing upon the almost universally dying condition of 

 the trees. 



The apple crop of New England, behig of far more present 

 importance than all our other fruit crops together, we shall 

 devote tlie remainder of our report to its recent failure, and a 

 statement of some simple facts in relation to it. The orchards 

 in most sections of Massachusetts gave early indications of a 

 fruitful season, so far as a very full bloom could point to such 

 a result ; but while the apples were well and abundantly formed, 

 they fell very profusely from the trees, until most of them had 

 no more to cast off. A very commonly received explanation of 

 this fact attributes it to the injury inflicted by the curculio. To 

 test this point one hundred Gravenstien apples were taken from 

 the ground at random, no other selection being made than was 

 sufficient to pick those as nearly uniform in size as possible. 

 Thrown promiscuously into a basket, each apple was examined 

 carefully for the wound indicating the attack of the insect. Of 

 the whole number gathered, only twenty-three were found with 

 the "mark of the beast" upon them. At this time the tree 

 retained only three apples, two of which had the crescent shaped 

 wound. Of these, one had been attacked in eleven distinct 

 points, and yet grew to be the only tolerably perfect apple upon 

 the tree. We think this may be assumed as a strong argument 

 against the curculio theory. 



It has also been common with many persons to attribute such 

 blighting of the apple crop either to the cold of the preceding 

 winter, or to east winds prevailing about the period when the 

 orchards were in bloom. 



It may be that both these conditions of the weather produce 

 the deleterious effects attributed to them, but when we consider 

 that a careful examination of weather tables, extending over a 

 period of nearly or quite two hundred years, fixes the fact 

 beyond dispute that the seasons of New England are unchanged 

 in any important particular during that period, and also that 

 the apple orchards have produced liberally notwithstanding 

 severe winters and persistent east winds, we must perforce 



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