283 
of the twigs of each variety, of as uniform length as _possi- 
ble, and with the exception of those of July 9 each handful 
from a single large tree, was gathered, and before weighing 
was divided into two parts without selection.’ The deter- 
minations are thus in as close duplicate as it was possible 
to secure ; the last column gives the average of each pair of 
duplicates. The twigs gathered July 9 were from a large 
number of young trees in nursery rows. Inall cases where 
the leaves were present they were carefully removed before 
drying, in order to have all determinations strictly compar- 
able. The drying was done at 100° C., the weights taken 
in grams and the lengths in inches. 
The statistics of this table seem sufficiently complete for 
the winter months, but are defective for the growing sea 
son. Turning at once to acomparison of the moisture in 
the Bartlett and Seckel pears, as representing the extremes 
in capacity for blighting, it is a surprise to find that the 
variety that is less influenced by blight, the Seckel, shows 
a constantly higher percentage of water than the other, 
with other incongruous facts. In view of this conclusion, 
it is unprofitable to institute further comparison of varieties 
until more statistics are in hand, as the results appear to be 
anomalous: and unexplainable. Averaging all the percent- 
ages for the pear and all those for the apple, the results fall 
into line with those deduced from Emmons and Penhallow’s 
_ data, the larger percentages being explained by the younger 
growth and the time of year the material was gathered. 


Pear, | Apple. 
Percentage of water DUCHUEM OY Wut OHS 9 ay seis ee woes 44,84143.81- 
Y 64 “ Penhallow................/51.4 149.4 
« < ss Arthur Gai bows rk 57.8 |52 



As the flowers are an important part of the plant in its 
relation to the blight, a set of determinations were under 
taken at the time the flowers were beginning to open, to 
see if the percentages of water in the twigs plus the flower 
clusters bear the same relation to each other that those of 
twigs alone do. Here we find that the Bartlett shows a 
somewhat higher amount of moisture than the Seckel, but 
is itself exceeded by the Boussock and Flemish Beauty, 
both of which varieties are also much given to blighting. 
The varieties of apple show less moisture than those of the 
pear, and the mountain ash, which blights somewhat like 
the apple, is not much above it in moisture. But the figures 
of this table must be accepted with considerable allowance, 
on account of the difficulty of selecting examples from the 
several varieties that represented them at the same stage of 
development. 
