142 The Western Pomologist and Gardener. 1872 



Frnit Prospects.— Conditional Influences of Frnltfulness. 



By Dr. Jam^-s Weed, Muscatine, Iowa, 



Ed. Pomologist and Gakdener : Apples promise a fair, perhaps a large crop. Some 

 complaint is macle of their falling off, and with some kinds and upon some trees this pre- 

 mature dropping is too general. The bloom was very profuse, and fewer trees were 

 wholly destitute of flowers than I recollect ever before to have seen. Pears also were 

 very full, but the young fruit in many eases has fallen pretty generally. Early Richmond 

 and Morello cherries were badly damaged in winter, the temperature having on three 

 several occasions fallen to ten or twelve degrees below zero, which killed many of the 

 fruit buds, and those which passed the winter apparently unharmed and which were suf- 

 ficiently numerous to have given a fair crop, have many of them failed, and cherries are 

 more nearly a failure than for many years past. 



Peaches and apricots showed an occasional flower, and cultivated plums had many that 

 survived the winter's cold, and these adhere well to the trees and would mature but for 

 the curculio — every apricot and plum having already from one to half a dozen eggs 

 deposited for its destruction. Wild plums, the fruit buds of which we believe are never 

 killed by the cold of winter, have dropped their fruit as badly as the cherries, and we had 

 no frost after the trees came into bloom. 



Now what are the causes of the partial failure of the wild plums, the hardy cherries, 

 and of some pears and apples, it is difficult to tell. We are confident the fruit buds of 

 the apple, pear and wild plum were not injured by cold in winter, and no spring frost 

 occuring, the causes were probably in some unfavorable conditions for fertilization, 

 during infloresence. We have a variety of the Red Morello cherry that lost none of its 

 fruit buds] in winter, and consequently was full of bloom, but blooming later than the 

 Early Richmond and others, the flowers were just fully open when a heavy rain occurred, 

 lasting only six hours, out which we believe washed away the pollen to such an extent as 

 • .to prevent proper fertilization. This cherry and the Raule's Jannette apple, which was 

 in boom at the same time, were severely thinned in their crops from some cause, and 

 we are able to assign no more probable one than the occurrence of this rain. 



Continued cool weather during the period of infloresence, though no actual frost 

 occurs, appears to interrupt fertilizfttion in the wild plum and in cherries, or in Some 

 other way to cause the fruit to fall prematurely. Some varieties of the apple are disposed 

 to cast oft the young fruit in this manner from slight causes, while others are character- 

 ized by great persistency, even holding their fruit against high winds up to full maturity. 

 The conditions which influence fruitfulness in trees are so many and so varied, such as 

 the previous culture, the previous season and their peculiar relationship to the emergen- 

 cies of the present, extremes of heat and cold, of drouth and exce-ssive moisture that 

 with the closest observation, one is often involved in such a complexity of considerations 

 as to debar an opinion, but occasionally a cause and effect are so clearly traceable that we 

 establish a fact, which in its connection with our previous acquirements, may lead us to a 

 better knowledge of future obstacle.?, and thus advance the enobling cause of Horticulture. 



Extracting the Juice From Grapes. — Centrifugal force instead of pressure, is now 

 being used in France to extract the juice from grapes for the manufacture of wine. The 

 idea has been long in application in this country in laundries, for drying clothes and 

 in sugar refineries. It is said to give entire satisfaction when applied to expressing the 

 juice from grapes or apples, and some of our viniculturists will doubtless do well to try 

 it in California. The machine is represented as acting more rapidly than the ordinary 

 press, and extracts more juice. Thus, with grapes the machine will in two hours, do 

 more work than the press in seventeen, and the juice is all of the same quality, 

 while by the old process only the first running will make wine of the best quality, as 

 the remainder is injured by the contacs with the skins and stalks. The same results 

 are obtained in extracting the juice from apples. The motive power necessary to drive 

 the apparatus, it is reported, is not large, as a three-horse engine will give a thousand 

 turns a minute to an ordinary sized machine. — San Francisco Morning CaU. 



