44 state; pomologicai, society. 



clay or still 12 degrees below freezing. Some time during the 

 night it dropped off 2 degrees to +18 degrees F. and hy 2 o'clock 

 on the afternoon of tJie 20th the temperature had risen to +^5 

 degrees F. or /j degrees on the thawing side. That night shozvs 

 a drop of 55 degrees to -h/o degrees F. Back it comes again 

 J7 degrees to +4"/ degrees F. and thazving on the 21st and on the 

 folloiving night falling 60 degrees to —13 degrees F. Thus we 

 had the long continued low temperatures, the extreme low tem- 

 peratures, the rapid thawing following a hard freeze, and the 

 alternate freezing and thawing all in the month of January and 

 the last three conditions occurring within 10 days. I need not 

 tell the orchardists of Maine what this did to the fruit trees for 

 they know that part of it too well, but I do believe that this 

 record for January, 1907, shows when and how the damage was 

 acomplished. When we remember that we have transferred the 

 apple from the milder climate and lesser rainfall of south- 

 western Asia and southeastern Europe, is it strange that so many 

 varieties succumb to the conditions I have just described? I 

 am not so astonished because of the number killed as I am that 

 so many survived. 



But this does not explain why one variety is killed and another 

 variety in the same orchard is not killed or why an individual 

 is killed and another of the same variety standing beside it sur- 

 vives under exactly the same conditions. No doubt also some 

 of you feel that our reasoning has been faulty for you have 

 repeatedly seen the trees on an exposed hillside survive while 

 those on the lower ground in the same orchard are killed. We 

 cannot explain the difference in hardiness of varieties, or of 

 individuals of the same variety, but I think we can explain in 

 part, at least, why the trees in the more exposed localities stood 

 the winter better than those on the lower ground. In the first 

 place it is a fact well known that the cold air drains off into the 

 valleys or pockets and that the hillsides, though more exposed, 

 do not as a rule record so low temperatures as does the lower 

 ground. This fact is almost always considered in locating peach 

 orchards. The peach, as you know, being quite sensitive to 

 frost. Secondly let me call your attention again to the sentence 

 "Those parts of plants that contain little water are particularly 

 endowed with the power of withstanding cold." I think we are 

 justified from what has been said in going one step farther and 



