1064 
ducive to the best nutrition of the tree 
influence its capacity to retain the crop. 
Insect and Other Injury 
Fruits often fall because of insect or 
fungus injury to tree or fruit. The ef- 
fects of serious injury to the foliage or 
the puncturing of the fruit by any one 
of the innumerable insect pests are too 
well known to demand attention, though 
insect injury must by no means be 
thought to be a sure cause of the drop- 
ping of a crop. Some insects, as cod- 
ling moth, curculio, and the berry 
worms may remain until the fruit is 
fully developed. 
Overloading 
Lastly, it may be of distinct advan- 
tage for a tree to drop a part of its load 
if it have more fruit than it can bring 
to the best maturity. If it does not do 
so naturally, the fruit grower should 
take the matter in hand and thin the 
crop. 
Frosts and Weather 
The weather, as we have indicated in 
a previous paragraph, has much to do 
with the setting and dropping of fruit. 
A study of the weather as it affects the 
formation and development of fruit buds 
was made at this Station several years 
ago covering a period of 25 years be- 
ginning in 1881.* Since the report of 
this study can no longer be had the main 
conclusions are again published here. 
During this 25-year period late frosts 
ruined the fruit crops in Western New 
York in four years, seriously lessened 
the yield in five years, and did much 
damage to pears, peaches and plums in 
three other seasons. That is to say, in 
more than half of the 25 years, “unrea- 
sonable” frosts caused serious loss to 
fruit growers over the section as a whole. 
The years of frosts appeared in cycles, 
as there was but one harmful frost dur- 
ing the first eight years of the 25, then 
for six years in succession the crops 
were damaged seriously, while during the 
latter half of the period the frosts were 
more evenly distributed. 
*U P Hedrick, Bulletin No 299 New York 
Agricultural Hxperiment Station, March, 1908 
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PRACTICAL HORTICULTURE 
During seven years when frosts did 
little or no harm, cold, wet weather play- 
ed almost as disastrous a part and re- 
duced the crops to unprofitable propor- 
tions; while in five of the years of frost 
the damage was increased by the effects 
of cold storms. These storm years, like 
the frost years, came in cycles. A first 
short period of three years, beginning in 
1881, was marked by storms, as was a 
longer period of seven years beginning 
in 1888 During the first period, wind 
strong enough to harm the blossoms, 
even without the accompanying rain, 
was a feature of each season, as was al- 
so the case in 1905; while in another 
year, without injurious rain storms, the 
wind alone did considerable harm to 
blossoms. 
Sunshine at blooming time, with warm, 
dry weather, marked five years, only, of 
the 25; and in each of these years the 
crops were excellent. In three of them 
the records were broken for one or an- 
other of the fruits and enormous yields 
were secured from practically all fruits. 
From these facts, and more detailed 
data given in the original bulletin, we 
must conclude that rain and the cold and 
wind that usually accompany it in mid- 
May cause the loss of more fruit than 
any other agency. Killing frosts take 
second place as destructive forces, though 
the sudden, plainly evident harm they do 
attracts more attention and causes more 
complaint than the slowly developing, 
more concealed damage from a long, cold 
storm without freezing temperature. 
Frosts usually blacken and destroy im- 
mediately the reproductive organs of the 
flowers, giving very plain evidence of 
harm; but such evidence is often given 
undue weight, so that the injury from 
light frosts is frequently overestimated. 
Cold storms, or even very cool days 
without frost, at blooming time lessen or 
destroy the crop in several ways. The 
rains wash off the tiny grains of pollen 
from the delicate anthers of the flowers 
and thus prevent their journey on the 
body of some insect, so that they fail to 
rerform their fertilizing office. Even if a 
pollen grain chance to reach the pistil 
