50 The Western Pomologist and Gardener. 1872 



Apples irlll bear Freezing. 



Ed. p. & G. — Wm. P. Lippincott misquotes me in December number. I asked why 

 apples could endure ten degrees of frost without injury, and be ruined by fourteen 

 degrees ? 



My object in this question was to call especial attention to the fact that well organized 

 and perfectly ripened apples could be thoroughly and solidly frozen at a temperature ten 

 degrees below freezing, and that when apparently in the same condition in respect to 

 congelation, a temperature four degrees lower destroyed their vitality indiscriminately. 

 The feeble and imperfectly ripened ones were destroyed by ten degrees of frost in the 

 first instance, and none could be saved hy gradual thawing in cold water after fourteen 

 degrees on the second occasion. It is evident that the greater cold was the patent agent 

 of destruction, and it is important that cultivators should recognize the fact. It is said 

 frozen apples will thaw at twenty-six degrees, and if so, undoubtedly they will not freeze 

 in a temperature above twenty-si.x degrees ; and consequently, twenty-two degrees, which 

 is ten degrees below the freezing point of water is only four degrees below the freezing 

 point of apples. Some apples were again frozen upon the trees the past autumn, and 

 without injury. 



Our peach buds and a part of those of the Early Richmond cherry were killed by ten 

 degrees below zero early in the present winter, and if we remember rightly peaches were 

 mostly killed a few winters ago about St. Louis by scven or eight degrees below. This 

 was probably owing to the buds in that mild climate being in a similar condition to that 

 of the imperfect apples, not well ripened, or in their most perfect hybernating condi- 

 tion. — James Weed, Muscatine, Iowa. 



Black K.not on Plnm Trees.— Canse and Remedy. 



Upon this subject, Mark W. Stevens, of Sloanesville, N. Y., writes to the New York 

 Farmers' Club : "My theory of the cause of this disease is, that the disease is caused by 

 an excess of sap in the branchi s at a time when the growth of wood and leaves do not 

 absorb it, and when the leaves do not protect the branches from the sun. The ground at 

 that season is usually saturated with water and the heat often extreme ; they, acting 

 together, produce a flow of sap which cannot be absorbed by the young leaves, and is 

 therefore retained in the young wood, where fermentation takes place, caused by the 

 sun's heat, and the result is the disease described. 



The reasons for this opinion are these : The disease seldom occurs in the kinds of 

 plums which have an early and luxuriant growth of leaves, such as the Princess Imperial, 

 Gage, Jeflerson, Orange-plume, and Yellow Gage, but does appear on others growing 

 alongside the above, and growing under precisely the same circumstances, such as Smiths 

 Orleans, Damson and Red Gage, which have smaller and fewer leaves than the first men- 

 tioned. It seldom occurs upon trees root-grafted into the wild plum stock, which devel- 

 opes a small root compared with the top of the tree. It seldom occurs in trees that are 

 making a good medium growth of wood ; not too much or too near none at all. It does 

 occur most frequently upon trees which stand in a moist, deep, dark and rich soil, and 

 without a sod upon it ; or in places where the winter snow drifts remain late in the spring, 

 retarding the production of leaves until the spring is so far advanced that a few hot days 

 hastens an excessive flow of sap, for which the top of the tree is unprepared. 



The only way to prevent the disease is to plant plums upon rather dry soil, of kinds 

 least subject to the blight, and which kinds these are, almost every nurseryman of experi- 

 ence can name in a minute if he will. Mulch with chip manure, four inches deep, and 

 four feet wide around each tree, in March or April, and if the soil is very deep and rich, 

 then root-prune a little once in two years, in the fall, after the leaves have fellen. 



Peach Buds in Southeastern Iowa. — Mr. G. B. Biackett, of Denmark, Lee county, 

 writes us, February 6th : "We are having cold weather here — mercury 8 degrees below 0, 

 for four n'ornings in succession. This morning, about three inches of snow. Peach buds- 

 nearly all killed." 



