18 Observations upon the Season of 1849. 



exemption from injury, as in the western part of this State, 

 and in Maine, or of single trees and gardens in various places, 

 such explanation may perhaps be found in the circumstance 

 that the former did not feel the influence of the warmth of 

 December, and the latter were in some way sheltered from 

 the severe cold succeeding it ; and the escape of the latter, 

 too, — even the peach tree, usually most susceptible of inju- 

 ry, — may be owing, from a very cold and exposed situation, 

 to their exemption from the exciting effects of unseasonable 

 warmth. The cold of the past winter was not greater or of 

 longer continuance than has been frequently experienced ; 

 neither were the frosts of the spring more severe or later in 

 that season than have repeatedly occurred, without either 

 being followed, heretofore, by such disastrous consequences ; 

 while such a combination of great warmth, followed so im- 

 mediately by very severe cold, has, it is believed, rarely 

 taken place. 



The destruction of the fruit crop has caused a two-fold 

 disappointment ; for it has not only deprived us of our fruit 

 and the pecuniary compensation arising from this branch of 

 culture, but it has prevented or deferred for a season the test- 

 ing, this year, as was confidently hoped and expected, of the 

 quality of many of the new varieties of recent introduction. 

 Scarcely any new pears, or other fruits of foreign origin, 

 have been exhibited this year at the rooms of the Horticul- 

 tural Society, or submitted for examination to its committees. 

 At the annual exhibition of the society, a few pears were 

 exhibited that have not, it is presumed, before produced 

 fruit in this country. Among such are now remembered the 

 St. Nicholas, from the Hon. M. P. Wilder ; and Josephine of 

 Malines, a variety in high repute in Europe, from the Presi- 

 dent of the Society, and Mr. Washburn, of Plymouth. So far 

 as an opinion could be formed from tasting a single specimen, 

 and that, perhaps, prematurely gathered from the tree, the 

 former of these possesses valuable properties ; the latter are 

 not yet in maturity, and their quality has not, it is believed, 

 yet been tested. 



Another pear, that, though heretofore known in New York, 



