334 The Principles of Fruit-growing. 
to seriously reduce the crop of fruit. The most 
disastrous storms are probally those milder ones of 
long duration, and which are accompanied by a low 
temperature. Not only may such weather tend to 
prevent the discharge of pollen, but it prohibits the 
work of insects. 
It must be admitted that the above remarks are 
inferences. We have almost no exact knowledge 
upon the effect of rain storms upon the setting of 
fruit. A few small studies have so far been made 
in this country, and these are now quoted. 
Beach and Fairchild* report experiments in ap- 
plying continuous sprays to pears and grapes. “On 
May 16 two Mount Vernon pear trees, apparently 
of equal vigor, standing within one hundred feet 
of each other, were selected. Into one was thrust 
the Vermorel nozzle, with its broad, fine spray. 
The tree was about twenty-five feet high, and the 
spray from the nozzle did not entirely cover it; in 
fact, the original design, soon abandoned, was to wet 
only one-half of the tree, and leave the other half 
dry. At the inanguration of the experiment, only a 
few blossoms had opened upon either tree, and, as 
no inseets had been busy about the fruit trees, owing 
to the cold weather immediately preceding, no risk 
from previous pollination was run. The water was 
turned on at noon of May 16, and kept running 
(except from 10 A. M. of the 21st, to 10 A.M. of 
the 23d, during an almost constant rain-storm, pre- 
* Eleventh Ann. Rep. N. Y. State Exp. Sta. for 1892, 607. 
