frost touched
them. Another season they may be all right. All our cherry trees, too,
are almost dead and will be removed and their place used for a trial
orchard.

It was of great advantage to plants and trees that we had much snow,
giving them good protection in root and stem two feet up. But this deep
snow helped the rabbits also in reaching the lower branches of the apple
trees. They were very active during the winter months and did much
damage by biting off the buds and smaller twigs from those branches, but
did no injury to the bark of trees otherwise.

Spring was rather cold and late. Up to the middle of May there was not
much growth of any kind. But we started work at the station as soon as
the ground could be worked. Apple and plum grafts made last winter were
set out. The orchard was gone over and trees pruned where needed. The
grape vines were uncovered and tied up on the trellis. A liberal
dressing of manure was worked in around vines growing on poor soil. More
than a hundred Alpha grape vines were planted along a students' walk for
their future benefit. The everbearing strawberries were looked after and
a new bed was started. Some apple trees were planted in the orchard to
replace others. Quite a number of German pear seedlings were grafted
with hardy varieties an inch below ground. We expect this will give us
healthy and hardy trees and fruit in due time.

[Illustration: Patten's No. 108 in blossom at Collegeville Station.]

A friend of mine sent me from Los Angeles, Cal., four fine large cherry
trees: the Tartarian, Napoleon Bigarreau and Early Richmond. These are
one year old budded trees; they have made in the congenial climate of
California a growth of about eight feet and are an inch through the
stem. They arrived the first week in March. It was cold yet and the
ground covered with a foot of snow. As we could not plant them, we
applied water to the roots and kept the trees unpacked in the cool root
cellar till planting time. They are growing now, but next spring we
expect to see their finish. Another variety of sweet cherries was sent
to the trial station from the mountains of Pennsylvania and planted in
the nursery, but we expect that will meet the same fate. From the U.S.
Dept. of Agriculture we have obtained scions of a pear, No. 26485,
which were used in budding some German pear seedlings, as also ten
plants of Prunus Tomentosa No. 38856. This is a Chinese bush cherry, and
though the fruit is