30 THE CONNECTICUT POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



Report of Committee on Fungous Diseases for 1907. 



By Dr. G. p. Clinton, New Haven, Chairman. 



On behalf of the Committee on Fungous Diseases, I pre- 

 sent the following report. The character of the weather, 

 rather than fungous diseases or insect injuries, was the impor- 

 tant cause of poorer crops than usual in this State the past 

 year. As a whole it was a most unusual year as regards cli- 

 matic conditions upon plant growth. To begin with, there 

 was some winter injury, though the winter was not ususually 

 severe. The reports made at our annual meeting last Febru- 

 ary showed that most of the peach blossoms in the State 

 were dead at that time ; later investigations also showed more 

 or less injury to the young twigs. However, the trees did 

 not suffer from winter injury anything like they did in Michi- 

 gan. Professor Taft, in a recent letter, writes that in his 

 state, "our trees were seriously injured and millions of them 

 killed by the freeze of October 10, 1906." * 



The second unfavorable feature of the season of 1907 in 

 Connecticut was the unusually backward spring. On May 

 8th, market-gardeners told me that they were about a month 

 behind the average season. Coupled with this late spring 

 were two severe frosts on May 8th and May 21st. These 

 frosts further injured peach and also strawberry blossoms 

 and severely injured or killed outright many unprotected 

 tender plants, such as tomatoes and potatoes. The most evi- 

 dent injury, however, was to the young unfolding leaves of 

 the sycamores, not only in this but in other eastern states, so 

 that the scanty foliage on the trees was a noticeable feature 

 all summer. 



The third prominent character of the weather was the 

 very unusually dry period during the best of the growing 

 season. This drought was more prominent in certain parts 

 of the State than in others, but was felt in some degree 

 throughout. I quote from a newspaper clipping which gives 

 a fair idea of the dry weather in the vicinity of New Haven; 



