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OUR PRESENT FRUIT PROSPECTS.
BY B. GOTT, ARKONA, ONT.
On the mornings of the 13th, 14th, and 15th of May we were visited by extraordinary keen frosts, which did much damage to our fruit and to our grain, and somewhat changed the aspect of our whole fruit condition for the season, which at one time promised to be a very unusual and abundant general fruit crop. That cold snap fell most seriously upon our grapes and strawberries, damaging both these very valuable fruits to the extent of fully two-thirds of the entire crop. Both these fruits were at the time just in the condition to be most seriously and generally injured by a frost. In the case of the grapes, the young shoots were out from six to twelve inches long, fully exposing the young tendrils covered with fruit germs, and of course very tender and most easily affected. In the case of the strawberries, the corolla and calyx were still pointing upwards, placing the young and tender germs in the condition to be most seriously affected by frost. In consequence, we shall suffer in both these crops; and there is considerable complaining throughout the country. Currants and gooseberries too, whose fruit was nearly grown to full size, were severely injured also by the frost, I think fully to the extent of one-third the entire crop, raspberries and blackberries not being quite forward enough to be so easily injured, escaped the effects of the frost. Apples, pears, cherries, plums, and peaches, although each of them was slightly affected by the frost, yet in the case of each, the promise at the present is for a most abundant and unusual crop. Every tree nearing maturity was literally covered with blossoms, most of the germs being fertilized and setting very thickly over the trees. But this is not true of those trees that were defoliated by the Tent Caterpillars last season; no blossoms whatever appeared upon them. I might mention also that the effects of the frost were so severe as to totally kill young Tent Caterpillars on the leaves of our young trees; also the young and tender growths of Norway spruce and balsam fir were seriously frozen and killed; so of black and white walnuts, chestnuts, hickory, &c. Our grains, and our grasses, in their young growths, have also suffered, and are severely injured in their leaves, and the stems of clover were frozen. This is a very unusual occurrence, but then this whole season has been a very unusual and remarkable one from the beginning.
With respect to insects, allow me to report that they are at the present time very abundant, and very industrious and exceedingly destructive in their effects upon our young foliage. The Winter and Spring has been the most favorable for the preservation and development of insect life.
I wish to report that the Currant Worm, (Nematus Ventricosus,) is unusually abundant this season, and even now many gooseberry and currant bushes are totally denuded. We first observed them working April 25th, and most abundantly on the gooseberry leaves; and by May 1st, the numbers were so so great that many of the bushes were stripped, and they threatened the entire destruction of the foliage in the whole plantation, but not appearing to fancy currant leaves. I think I never saw such large numbers gathered together; the bushes were literally alive with them, and the foliage disappeared in a remarkably short time. To check this wide-spread destruction, we applied powdered white hellebore in pretty strong doses, say a heaped table-spoonful to one pail of water, and sprinkled it over the bushes by means of a rose sprinkler; but this appeared to have little perceptible effect upon the insects. We then applied a second dose, stronger than before, which had the effect of rendering them inactive, and finally brought the most of them to mother earth. We also found that by shaking the bushes we could bring them to the ground, and then by means of our broad feet crush them to dust. I am sorry to say, however, that many allowed them to work away unmolested, and effect a total defoliation of their bushes; people of this type are to be found in almost every neighborhood. Present indications are, that the Forest Tent Caterpillars, (Clissiocampa Sylvatica,) are not so numerous or so destructive as they were last season, but they may still come out in large forces. The beautiful warm and summer-like weather we have had for the most part has had the effect of bringing into activity a large and varied force of active and devouring insects. What our developments may still be we are positively unable at present to foretell, but we have every assurance that we will have enough and to spare, for we have never yet seen a season when the Divine promise has not literally been abundantly fulfilled, “Seed time and harvest shall not fail.”
Yesterday, the 19th inst., a delightful, warm, steady, and refreshing rain visited us, and has seemed to cheer the whole aspect of nature, and give a bright appearance and renewed vigor to our needy vegetation.
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THE BEURRE BOSC PEAR.
More than thirty years ago the late A. J. Downing said, “among Autumn pears, the Beurre Bosc proves, year after year, equally deserving of praise. Its branches are regularly laden with large, fair, and beautiful specimens, of a fine yellow, touched with a little cinnamon russet, which ripens gradually, and always attains a delicious flavor. With many sorts of pears it is unfortunately the case that only one fruit in ten is really a fine specimen; with the Beurre Bosc it is just the reverse; scarcely one in ten is blemished in appearance, or defective in flavor. It is, in short, a standard fruit of the highest excellence and worthy of universal cultivation.”