FRUITS. 205 



need not think that the task is accomplished. But I hope that 

 each year our tables will show an improvement in quality rather 

 than in the number of the varieties. 



Andrew Wellington. 

 Lexington, September 19, 18G1. 



Grapes and Assorted Fruit. — The cultivators of fruit have 

 suflfered very much the last winter from the severity of the 

 season or the extreme changes in the temperature of the atmos- 

 phere, by which almost all the bearing wood of the grape vines 

 (wild ones as well as those cultivated) were killed, and the 

 more tender varieties lost all their wood down to the ground 

 unless protected in some manner. And among horticulturists 

 there is quite a difference of opinion as to the time when the 

 vines and fruit trees were injured — some contending that the 

 damage was done on the night of the thirtieth day of Scptem- 

 ter, 1860, and the two succeeding nights, at which time the 

 thermometer fell to twenty degrees above zero, and at the same 

 time apples were frozen in some cold locations on the trees. 

 But it seems to iis that no such injury to the trees and vines 

 could have resulted from the cold of those nights. In connec- 

 tion with this inquiry, we have observed that almost all of the 

 peach trees, particularly the large old trees, have been killed 

 outright, and the smaller ones have suffered very much, having 

 had their tops badly killed. Quince trees have suffered as much 

 or more than the peach, many of them being entirely destroyed. 

 Pears lost most of their fruit buds, and the more tender varie- 

 ties some of their wood, and the crop of fruit was nearly or 

 quite a failure. Apples, although we could not expect a large 

 yield the present year, following the very great crop of the last, 

 still we had reason to suppose that the trees whose habits have 

 been to produce a crop the odd years, would this year have 

 been fruitful ; but the fruit buds were to a large extent destroyed 

 some time between September, 1860, and April, 1861. The 

 result has been a very meagre crop of poor apples. 



And thus the failure of the fruit crop and the damage to the 

 trees and vines has been general, not confined to grape vines, 

 but all trees and vines suffered more or less according to their 



