THE FROST-KILLING OF FRUIT-TREES. 



153 



After the plants are well started we put a little moss be- 

 tween the rows, and water can be sprinkled on from a 

 much coarser rose and even poured on from the spout 

 of the watering-can. It saves more than half the labor 

 of watering. And when you come to move the plants 

 you will find the roots holding a great mass of soil and 



moss. By thoroughly soaking the soil and moss before 

 forking up the plants we have had small, stocky to- 

 mato-plants that would hold by their roots more soil 

 than others do when removed from the ordinary three- 

 inch pots. 



Moreton Fai-m. Joseph Harris. 



THE FROST-KILLING OY FRUIT-TREES. 



H EN the tree that was thrifty 

 in the fall is found dead, or 

 part dead, in the spring, we 

 commonly say it was winter- 

 killed. Perhaps it was ; 

 perhaps fall-killed or 

 spring-killed. It was fall- 

 killed if the first freeze found 

 the new wood tender and 

 immature. It was winter- 

 killed if the cold was severe 

 and protracted enough to 

 dry the life out of it. Per- 

 haps low temperature alone 

 killed it, but as outdoor temperature is not under 

 control, this cause need not be considered here. 

 The tree may be spring-killed when a warm spell in 

 late winter or early spring is followed by a freeze. 

 Here on the Gulf Coast it is most likely to be 

 spring-killing that ails it. The loose, light soil 

 warms up with the warm rains and sun of February 

 and March, and then may come a "norther" that 

 cuts off the crop ; sometimes the tree. In the 

 prairie northwest it is most likely to be winter- 

 killed. With small annual rainfall, the usually 

 dry fall leaves but little moisture in the soil, and 

 this little is lessened by steady and long cold, often 

 on snowless ground, accompanied by high winds. 

 The moisture is dried out of the tree and the soil in 

 which it grew. East of the prairie country, where 

 fall weather is sometimes warm and wet, the tree is 

 more likely to be fall-killed than in the dry west or 

 the warm south. 



The orchardist does not control rainfalls or tempera- 

 ture, but may to some extent control the condition of 

 the soil and of the growth of the tree ; and on these 

 lines must do what is done to prevent or mitigate frost- 

 killing. On the condition of growth depend to a great 

 extent fall-killing and spring-killing ; on the condition 

 of the soil, winter-killing. For instance : the red-oak, 

 which grows as far north at least as Manitoba, and en- 

 dures a temperature of 50° or 60° below, is not reckoned 

 a tender tree, while the orange is; yet in March, i8go, a 

 freeze came that killed red-oak here in Mobile county, 

 but did not hurt the orange trees much. For weeks the 



weather had been warm. The orange, which scarcely 

 stops growing in winter, was well along on its season's 

 . journey, while the red-oak, always tardy in starting, was 

 just at that tender budding state when freezing hurts 

 most. 



The orchardist who would ripen the wood of his trees 

 before the freeze will neither cultivate nor apply fertil- 

 izers late in the season. To prevent too early a start 

 in the spring is not so easy. By underdraining some 

 soils the roots may be encouraged to go deeper where 

 they will not be so readily awakened by a little warm 

 weather. Mulching the ground may help by keeping the 

 surface cooler than a clean surface would be. Digging 

 away soil in the fall from the base of the trunk so as partly 

 to expose the tops of the side roots is said to delay 

 the spring start. This delaying the too early starting of 

 trees is worthy of more attention and investigation than 

 it has received. Throughout all the vast section known 

 as the "piney woods," a belt 1,000 miles wide and extend- 

 ing from the Mississippi eastward along the gulf to the 

 Atlantic, it is the too early start, or the too late frost 

 that frequently cuts off the crop, and sometimes the 

 trees as well. As mentioned, there is no practical pre- 

 ventive for the winter-killing that comes directly from a 

 low temperature ; but winter killing is more usually the 

 secondary result of long-continued cold, and cold winds 

 following a light annual rainfall, as it dries out the trees. 

 Species of evergreen that thrive far inside the arcticcircle, 

 where the rainfall or snowfall is abundant, winter-kill 

 in northwest Iowa where the rainfall is light and the 

 cold has little snow to hinder it from drying the ground. 

 To lessen the winter-killing that comes from winter- 

 drying, something may be done by such cultivation as 

 will allow the rainfall to run into instead of off the 

 ground. Cultivation, too, lessens evaporation. A grass 

 sod will evaporate about two and a half times as much 

 moisture as a cultivated surface. Underdraining in 

 some soils will help to husband the moisture and tend 

 to send the roots down out of the way of frost and frost- 

 drought ; this is one only of the many beneficial results 

 of this practice. 



Where it is winter-killing and not fall-killing that is to 

 be prevented, a light cultivation about the time of freez- 

 ing will tend both to retard evaporation and prevent 

 deep freezing. The railroad contractor who has to make 

 a deep cut in winter has the bottom plowed up every 

 evening, and is not hindered by the freezing of the coldest 

 night. Mulching helps in much the same way. The 



