Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 99, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 April 1919 — SOYS FOUR-FIFTHS OF FRUIT CROP DESTROYED [ARTICLE]

SOYS FOUR-FIFTHS OF FRUIT CROP DESTROYED

Lafayette, Ind., April 26. —Fourfifths of Indiana’s expected fruit crop for 1919 has been destroyed by frost and cold weather the last two nights, it was announced here today at Purdue university. Not in years has there been such a great disaster to cherries, apples, peaces, pears and plumbs. The financial loss has not yet beenaccurately estimated, but it will run into large figures. Reports on the situation have been received from’ county agricultural agents in all parts of the state by the farm experts of the institution. Damage, it appears, was done in some places Friday night that had escaped or been visited very lightly Thursday night. As a rule, however, temperatures were not .as low on the second evening. Professor Laurenz Green, chief hoticulturist at Purdue, said that>no region seemed to have been spared, except possibly the pocket, district in the region of Evansville, where some of the fruit may be saved. Tippecanoe county and surrounding counties fared as badly as any district in the state. Here the loss is almost complete. In addition to apples, pears, plumbs, peaches and cherries having been ruined, strawberry plants, which were in bloom, were also destroyed. The only fruit trees that escaped the deadly blight were those in sheltered places, such as private yards with houses close by, and even these are very few in number. The fruit outlook in Indiana, according to Professor Greene, is the poorest it has been in many years. There is every reason to believe that Hoosiers will pay more for tree and garden fruit this coming season than they have in®twenty years. Professor Greene said that until Thursday night, Indiana had prospects of a bumper apple crop. There were also excellent prospects of an unusually crop, most of the peach trees having survived the winter, where as in recent years they failed to do so.