Rhododendron Experience. 79 



RHODODENDRON EXPERIENCE. 



By Edward S. Rand, Jun., Boston, Mass. 



The winter of 1867-68 was probably more severe upon evergreens than 

 any we have experienced for a long series of years. 



The mercury in the vicinity of Boston fell to twenty degrees below zero, 

 and ten below was not an unfrequent degree of cold. 



Violent and piercing winds were very prevalent ; and the early m.onths 

 of spring were characterized by fierce dr5ang breezes, which seemed to draw 

 the moisture from every thing. 



When the sun in April began to gain warmth and strength, the disastrous 

 effects of the season were soon apparent. 



Cypresses, yews, the more tender and beautiful of the firs and pines, 

 Rctinospora, Cephalotaxus, Thuiopses, and many rare evergreens, were either 

 killed outright, or so fearfully cut up as to be valueless. 



Hemlock hedges showed great yellow blotches ; white pines in many 

 exposed places had a sickly, yellow look ; and even the red cedars led one 

 to infer they were so called from the spring color of the foliage : and the 

 general aspect gave us reason to doubt whether there was such a thing as 

 a hardy evergreen. 



Evergreens being in this condition, we turned with fear and trembling to 

 our masses of rhododendrons, kalmias, andromedas, and azaleas. Here, 

 also, we had reason to grieve. Large kalmias four feet high, and as much 

 in diameter, which had stood uninjured for years, were either killed to the 

 ground, or had not a green leaf upon them. Azaleas had the flower-buds, 

 and, in many cases, the young wood, killed. 



Many large, well-established rhododendrons were badly cut up, both in 

 wood and foliage. The native R. maximum lost all its flower-buds ; but 

 leaf and growth were uninjured. Andromedas, much to our surprise, es- 

 caped uninjured. The smaller rhododendrons, those less than two feet in 

 height, generally came out in good condition where well established, proba- 

 bly owing to being well protected by snow during the extreme cold. Yet 

 this same protection seemed to avail little in the case of seedlings from two 

 to five years old, which were generally entirely killed. 



