lo THE CONNECTICUT POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



tations and orchards were given the most thorough culture, 

 a good tree and plant growth had been secured and, upon 

 the whole, more thrifty and healthy conditions prevailed at 

 the opening of the present winter season than in many 

 previous years. The low prices of strawberries and other 

 small fruits for the last four or five years has caused con- 

 siderable curtailment of planting in '98 and '99, and the 

 dry weather of '99 still further shortened the crop, so there 

 was a material advancement of the selling price, and there 

 is generally a more hopeful feeling among the small fruit 

 growers than there has been for a number of years past. 



The public have gotten so in the habit of using small 

 fruits when they were so cheap that they will continue to 

 purchase them freely even with the advancing prices, and 

 further extended plantings are likely to follow this coming 

 spring. After the great freeze of a year ago had destroyed 

 most of the peach buds in the State, the leading orchards 

 were barren of fruit. There were, however, a few favored 

 localities on the hill tops of Hartford, New Haven and 

 New London counties where some fine fruit was produced, 

 probably 50,000 baskets in the whole State, when a full 

 crop would have give two million baskets. 



Japanese plums, which have been growing in favor for 

 several years past, came into very great prominence the 

 last fruiting season by giving full crops of fruit in sections 

 where peaches were entirely killed, and the markets 

 accepted this new fruit at prices that put it within the 

 reach of all consumers, after returning fair profits to the 

 producers. The apple crop, which was a failure in '99 in 

 some sections of the State, was quite a large one in many 

 others; the fruit was of exceptional size and beauty and 

 sold at higher prices than for many years past, and ship- 

 ments to many distant points attracted attention to Con- 

 necticut as an apple-growing State of commercial im- 

 portance. 



It has been the policy in the past for the leading fruit 

 growers of Connecticut to use very liberally of commercial 

 fertilizers, while cultivating thoroughly and well, but in 

 several experiments being carried on the last three or four 

 years, where more thorough cultivation had been given 



