The reason is this, that scab comes from very minute spores that appear upon the apples in May or June, and as the summer advances they spread more and more. It depends, of course, upon the amount of moisture there is present, but it begins its work when the apples are very small. If it gets upon the stem of the apple it works around the stem and the apple drops off, and you have apples dropping from the time they are the size of peas until the very last of the fall, and while it looks in the month of June as if you are going to have a good crop of apples when it comes harvest time your crop has diminished greatly or to nothing, and you wonder where it has gone. With this scab fungus they just keep dropping, dropping, all through the season; whenever you have a little rain or wind these apples that are affected will drop off. You don't notice them very much because they go so gradually, one at a time or so, and you don't notice you are having any particular loss until it comes fall, and you find that your crop is very small.

That is why I say, you should wake up to the fact that it is necessary for you to spray if you are going to have perfect fruit and plenty of it—and I doubt not you could increase the amount of fruit you have in the State of Minnesota by ten times in one year by simply spraying your orchards thoroughly at the proper time with fungicide.

To do this, as I said, you must have a spraying outfit, individually or collectively, in your neighborhood, and if you get one individually you can take the contract to spray your neighbor's trees, if you wish, and get back enough to pay you for the outlay. If you have only a few trees and you have some one who understands it, you could just as well spray a few other orchards in the neighborhood and get your spraying done for nothing in that way, charging them enough to cover the cost and enough for some profit. That is done in some sections and is a very satisfactory way.

The only way, however, that I would do this, if I were you, would be to enter into a joint arrangement of not less than five years, because if you do it from year to year, if a man has good fruit one year, he may say, "I guess I don't want to go to that expense this year; I will drop that." You know how it is. If you make a contract for five years then you can make your plans accordingly and get your material and your spraying outfit and everything. I wouldn't trust to a one-year plan because they get "cold feet," as the saying is, after the first year, and perhaps they have not noticed any great advantage and they back out, but if they keep it up five years they wouldn't be without it.

In a small way it isn't necessary to have a high power, high pressure engine to do this spraying with. A good hand pump, as they make them now, has a very efficient force in applying this spray. It is not the force with which the spray material is applied that makes it effective, so much as it is the thoroughness with which it is done. You have to do a thorough job. In spraying you are providing insurance for your apple crop. That is just what it means, and not to spray is like doing without fire insurance on your buildings. You do that, not because you want fire, but you are doing it for protection, you are going to be on the safe side. You are doing like the darkey woman when she was about to be married. She had been working as cook, and the day came for her to be married. That morning she brought a roll of bills down to the boss. She said: "Mr. Johnson, I wish you would keep this money for me. I's gwine to be married." He said: "Is that so? But why do you come to me with this? I should think having a husband you would have him take care of it for you." She said: "Lord a' massy. Do you think I was gwine to have that money around the house wid dat strange nigger there? No, sir." (Laughter.)

That lady was taking the precaution of being on the safe side, and that is what we do when we spray our orchards, we are going to be safe.

There are a great many kinds of spraying materials. There is the bordeaux, one of our best fungicides, but we find in Illinois that it also, while it is a good fungicide, has the effect sometimes of burning the fruit if the weather conditions are just right. If you have pretty fair weather conditions up here and don't have too much rain, you probably would not get your fruit affected too much, and if you are not growing it for market it doesn't matter so much because all it does is to russet the fruit. It doesn't do any particular harm except when the scab fungus is especially bad, for then it does injure the foliage more or less. On the whole, in Illinois, we are using the lime-sulphur in preference to the bordeaux, and our commercial orchard growers there have completely abandoned the bordeaux except for bitter rot fungus or blotch fungus, which comes late in the season. The spray just before the bloom is a very important one for the scab fungus. After you can see the pink of the bloom on the trees as they begin to look pink, before the blossoms open, put on your lime-sulphur, or you can use bordeaux mixture at that time if you prefer it, without injury to your fruit.

(To be continued in April No.)



Everbearing Strawberries.

GEO. J. KELLOGG, JANESVILLE, WIS.

A few words about this new breed. Progressive, Superb and Americus are the best three I have found in the last ten years—don't confound American with Americus. Pan-American was the mother of the whole tribe. This variety was found in a field of Bismark, by S. Cooper, New York, and exhibited all through the Buffalo World's Fair. There is where my first acquaintance with it was formed. From this one plant and its seedlings all the ten thousand everbearers have been grown. But Pan-American don't make many plants. There are a great many good kinds in the ten thousand, and a great many of them worthless. So look out when and where you buy. I have great hopes of your No. 1017, but kinds do not adapt themselves to all soils or climates.

I have not found any success with the everbearers south of the Ohio. I have tried them three years in Texas. I sent plants to Bro. Loring, in California, and they failed to produce satisfactorily. Missouri grows almost all Aroma; California but two kinds commercially; Texas only Excelsior and Klondike for shipment. I hope our No. 3 Minnesota June-bearing and our No. 1017 Everbearing, will have as great a range as Dunlap.

Friend Gardener, of Iowa, has a lot of "thousand dollar kinds." I hope some of them will do wonders. He sold 5,000 quarts of fruit after August 15. A firm at Three Rivers, Mich., this season advertised 30,000 cases in September, but perhaps it was only 3,000; I have known printers to make mistakes. My boy's beds of Superb, Progressive and Americus were loaded with ripe and green fruit and blossoms October 1st this year. Most, if not all, know the fruit must be kept off the everbearers the season of planting till the plants get established, usually two or three months, then let them bear. If you want all fruit, keep off the runners; if all plants, keep off the fruit. Beds kept over that have exhausted themselves will need rest till July to give big crops. Beds kept over will fruit a week earlier than the June varieties, rest a few weeks, then give a fall crop, but don't expect too much unless you feed them.

There are ten thousand kinds of new everbearers, so don't buy any that have not been tried and proven worthy. There are thousands that are worthless. Friend Haralson only got No. 1017 out of 1,500 sorts. He has now 3,000 new kinds, set out four feet apart each way, he is testing. From what many growers are doing this breed will pay commercially, but it will be by experts. I have not time to advocate cultivation in hills or hedge rows; if you want big berries this is the way to get them. Be sure your straw mulch and manure mulch are free from noxious weed or clover and grass seeds. Everbearers need the same winter care as June varieties and a good deal more manure. Don't cover with asparagus tops unless free of seed. Put manure either fresh or rotted on the old bed with a manure spreader or evenly by hand. There is a possibility of manuring too heavily.



Mr. Durand: What is the best spray for leaf-spot and rust in strawberries?

Mr. Kellogg: Cut it out and burn it, but then there are some sprays with bordeaux mixture that will help you, but you have got to put it on before the rust shows itself.

Mr. Miller: I would like to ask Mr. Kellogg if he advises covering the strawberries in the winter after snow has fallen and with what success?

Mr. Kellogg: If the snow isn't too heavy you can do it just as well after the snow comes as before, but if your snow comes early and is a foot deep you have got to wait until the January thaw before you can successfully mulch them. That snow will protect them until it thaws off, until the ground commences to freeze. If the snow comes early and stays late it is all the mulch you need.

Mr. Franklin: Are oak leaves as they blow off from the trees on the strawberry beds, are they just as good to protect them as straw would be—when there are lots of oak leaves?

Mr. Kellogg: If you don't put them on too thick. You don't want more than two inches of leaves. If you do they will mat down and smother your plants.

Mr. Ludlow: Have you had any experience with using cornstalks that have been fed off, just the stalk without the leaves. Is that sufficient for a winter protection without the straw or leaves? I put on mine just to cover them. They are four inches apart one way and then across it the other way so as to hold it up and not get them smothered.

Mr. Kellogg: That is all right. I have covered with cornstalks.

Mr. Ludlow: Would it be policy to leave that on and let the strawberries come up through, to keep them clean?

Mr. Kellogg: If you get the stalks on one way and haven't them covered too thick the other way, leave them on; the strawberries will come through.

Mr. Gowdy: I would like to ask Mr. Kellogg what he thinks of planting different varieties together.

Mr. Kellogg: It is a good plan. I spoke of Dunlap and Warfield. The Warfield is a pistillate. If you plant all Warfields you get no fruit. If you plant all Dunlap it will bear well but it will do better alongside of a pistillate, or it will do better alongside of some other perfect. It will do better to plant two or four kinds. They used to ask me what kinds of strawberries I wanted, and what was the best one kind. I told them I wanted six or eight in order to get the best kind. I want an early, and a medium, and a late, two of a kind.

Mr. Gowdy: I planted one year three varieties with great success.

Mr. McClelland: What time do you uncover your strawberries?

Mr. Kellogg: I don't uncover them at all. If you got on four inches of mulch you want to take off enough so the plants can get through, but keep on enough mulch in the spring to keep your plants clean and protect from the drouth.

Mr. McClelland: Will they come through the mulch all right?

M. Kellogg: They will come through all right if it isn't more than two inches. If they shove up and raise the mulch open it up a little over the plants.

Mr. Willard: I would like to ask the speaker, the way I understood him, why he couldn't raise as good strawberries on new ground as on old ground?

Mr. Kellogg: The soil seems to be too loose. Now, that twenty-one acres I had, it was full of leaf-mold. It was six inches deep and had been accumulating for ages. I couldn't account for it only that it was too loose, and I had to work it down with other crops before I could grow strawberries.

Mr. Willard: So it would be better to plant on old ground or old breaking than new?

Mr. Kellogg: Yes, old ground that has been well manured, or old ground that has never been manured, will grow better strawberries than new soil, as far as I have tried it. New clover soil is a good soil.

Mr. Wedge: It might add to the value of this discussion to state that Mr. Kellogg's soil at Janesville is rather light soil anyhow. I am under the impression that if his soil at Janesville which produced so poorly on new soil had been a heavy clay soil that the result would have been different.

Mr. Kellogg: That twenty-one acres was clay after you got down to it and was in the woods; my other fields were out on the prairie. I don't think the light soil had anything to do with it, with my failure in the woods, I think it was the new soil.

Mr. Sauter: Can the everbearing and the common varieties be planted together?

Mr. Kellogg: Yes, if you are growing plants you want everything.

Mr. Sauter: How far apart must they be planted?

Mr. Kellogg: So their runners won't run together, and they won't mix. If the runners mix maybe you would get some crosses that are valuable.

Mr. Clausen: I was just thinking it might interfere, that some one might not plant strawberries at all on account of new soil. I would say I have a neighbor, and he had entirely new soil. It was black oak and hickory—I have some of that myself. I never saw a better patch of strawberries than he had. I don't think I ever saw a better strawberry patch than he had of the everbearing kind, so I don't think it is just exactly the old soil.

Mr. Willis: I have my strawberries on new ground, and they did very fine, couldn't be better. From a space of five feet square I got twenty-eight boxes, that is, of No. 3.

Mr. Wedge: Forest soil or prairie?

Mr. Willis: It was light clay. I have got about an acre and a half on new soil now, and they look very fine.

Mr. Glenzke: What would be the consequence of the berries being planted after tomatoes had been planted there the year before? What would be the consequence as to the white grub that follows the tomatoes, and other insects?

Mr. Kellogg: That white grub don't follow tomatoes, if the ground was clear of white grubs before. It is a three year old grub, and it don't come excepting where the ground is a marsh or meadow, and doesn't follow in garden soil, hardly ever. If the ground has been cultivated two years, you don't have any white grub.

Mr. Glenzke: Part of this ground had been in red raspberries, and I found them there. This year I am going to put in tomatoes and prepare it for strawberries. Will that be all right?

Mr. Kellogg: You may get some white grubs after the raspberry bushes if your raspberries have been two or three years growing. Potato ground is the best you can follow strawberries with.

Mr. Rasmussen (Wisconsin): What trouble have you experienced with overhead irrigation with the strawberries in the bright sunshine?

Mr. Kellogg: Everything is against it. You wet the foliage, and it is a damage to the plants. You can't sprinkle in the hot sun without damage.

Mr. Rasmussen: I didn't mean in putting it on in that way, but where you use the regular spray system. We watered that way about seven years in the hottest sunshine without any difficulty, and I wondered if you ever put in a system and sprayed that way, as I think that is the only way to put water on.

Mr. Kellogg: If you wait to spray after sundown it will be all right; the sun mustn't shine on the plants.

Mr. Richardson: Mr. Yankee once said in this society if one man said anything another man would contradict it. So pay your money and take your choice. I sprinkle my strawberries in the hot sun, and I never had any damage done to the plants. His experience is different. Ours is a heavy clay loam.

Mr. Kellogg: Tell the gentlemen about the peat soil, you had some experience with peat soil.

Mr. Richardson: No, I never did. It wasn't peat, it was a heavy black clay and I had the best kind of strawberries, they came right through a tremendous drouth without any water at all.

Mr. Kellogg: What did you use?

Mr. Richardson: I used a common garden hoe.

Mr. Willis: I heard some one talking about the grub worm. I read of somebody using fifty pounds of lime to the acre, slaked lime, and 100 pounds of sulphur to the acre in a strawberry bed, and he killed the insects.

Mr. Kellogg: I think that wouldn't kill the grub; he has a stomach that will stand most anything. The only thing I know is to cut his head off. (Laughter.)

Mr. Willis: Would it improve the plants, fertilize the plants, this lime?

Mr. Kellogg: Lime and sulphur is all right, and the more lime you put on the better—if you don't get too much. (Laughter.)

Mr. Sauter: I am growing the Minnesota No. 3, and also the No. 1017 as an everbearer. Is there any kind better than those two?

Mr. Kellogg: I don't believe there is anything yet that has been offered or brought out that I have examined thoroughly that is any better than June variety No. 3, as grown by Haralson, and the No. 1017 of the everbearers. He had a number of everbearers that bore too much. There was No. 107 and No. 108, I think, that I tried at Lake Mills, which bore themselves to death in spite of everything I could do.

Mr. Simmons: The question has come up two or three times in regard to peat soil for growing strawberries. Peat soil will grow strawberry plants first class, but the fruit is generally lacking. That is my experience. I grew some on peat soil for two or three seasons, and the plants grew prolific, but I didn't get any fruit.

Mr. Ebler: I would like to ask Mr. Kellogg what treatment he would advise for a strawberry bed that through neglect has matted completely over, in which the rows have disappeared.

Mr. Kellogg: Plow out paths and rake out the plants and throw them away and work the bed over to rows about two feet wide.

President Cashman: I see you all appreciate expert advice. We have Mr. Kellogg well nigh tired.

Mr. Kellogg: Oh, no; I can stand it all day.

Mr. Cashman: I am sure you all agree that it is a great privilege to listen to Mr. Kellogg on this subject. If you will follow his advice very closely it will save you a great many dollars, even to those who don't grow more than an ordinary family strawberry bed. He has had forty or fifty years of experience, and he has paid large sums of money for that experience and now turns it over to you free of charge, and I hope you will all profit by it.

Mr. Kellogg: I have grown probably 300 different varieties of strawberries, and the more kinds I grow the less money I make. (Laughter.)

Mr. Wedge: I would like to ask Mr. Kellogg and I think we would all be interested in knowing when he began growing strawberries?

Mr. Kellogg: Well, I don't hardly know. I didn't go into the business until 1852, but I commenced picking strawberries in 1835, and that was where the Indians had planted them. My father commenced growing strawberries when I was a boy, but when I got to be a man I went at it myself in 1852. (Applause.)



IN MEMORIAM—Mrs. Melissa J. Harris

Passed January 29, 1916.

Mrs. Melissa J. Harris, widow of the late John S. Harris, one of the charter members of our society and rightly called the godfather of the society, passed to her reward on January 29 last, at the age of eighty-five years. Since the death of her husband, which occurred in March, 1901, Mrs. Harris has made her home with some one of her four surviving children, all of whom live in the southeastern part of the state, not far from La Crescent, where Mr. and Mrs. Harris resided from 1856 up to the time of Mr. Harris' death, some forty-five years.



Many of the older members of this society have enjoyed the hospitality of this kindly home, among them the writer, who passed a very pleasant day there, looking over the experimental orchards of Mr. Harris, some twenty years ago. No member of our society surpassed Mr. Harris in his zeal for its welfare, and he was ready to sacrifice anything apparently to advance its interests. If the card index of the reports of this society was examined it would be found that no member has begun to do the service for the society in the way of contributions to its program, reports on seedling fruits, experimental work, etc., that was done by him. His passing left a real void in the life of the association which has never really been filled. A splendid life size photo of Mr. Harris adorns the walls of this office; a reproduction from this in reduced size is opposite page 161, Vol. 1901 of our annual reports.

The funeral services of Mrs. Harris were conducted in the Presbyterian church at La Crescent, the same building in which services were held for her husband, at which there were present from our society as representatives Mr. J.M. Underwood, the late Wyman Elliot, and the writer. Her body was laid to rest beside that of her husband in Prospect Hill Cemetery at La Crescent.

Mrs. Harris is survived by four children, ten grandchildren, and nine great-grandchildren. Frank I. Harris, one of the two sons, is well known to our membership who attend the annual meetings or the state fair; another son, Eugene E., who is also a life member (Mr. Harris saw to it that both of his sons were made life members during his life time) has occasionally been with us. Mr. D.C. Webster, of La Crescent, at present in charge of one of the society trial stations, is a grandson of Mrs. Harris. Exhibitors at our meetings and at the state fair are all well acquainted with this valuable member of our organization.—Secy.



EAT MINNESOTA APPLES.

Contributed monthly by R. S. MACKINTOSH, Horticulturist, Extension Division, University Farm, St. Paul.

FRUIT NOTES.

Early spring is the best time to prune apple trees. More and more attention is being given to the pruning of young and old trees in order that they may be able to support large loads of fruit. Yet too many trees have been neglected and now look like brush heaps instead of fruit trees.

Neglected trees should have all dead and interlocking branches removed this year. Next year a few more needless branches should be taken out and some of the others shortened. After this a little attention each year will keep the tree in good form.

Each year the Agricultural Extension Division of the University of Minnesota arranges for pruning and spraying demonstrations in different orchards of the state. Communities wishing this kind of help, should at once send in petitions signed by fifteen or more persons interested in fruit growing. Send applications to Director, Agricultural Extension Division, University Farm, St. Paul.

Pruning is a good subject for farmers' clubs to take up in March and April.

Look out for rabbit injury this spring. Apple trees cost too much



GARDEN HELPS

Conducted by Minnesota Garden Flower Society

Edited by MRS. E. W. GOULD, 2644 Humboldt Avenue So. Minneapolis.

Cypripedia, by Miss Clara Leavitt.

The showy lady's slipper (C. hirsutum) is found in swamps and rich meadows. Old settlers tell of gathering the pink and white "moccasin flower" by the bushel, to decorate for some special occasion. Today we are trying to shield a few in their last hiding places. The draining of swamps and cutting of meadows has had much to do with their disappearance. The picking of the leafy stem by the ruthless "flower lover" cripples the plant for a season or more and frequently kills it outright. Attempts to transfer it to the home garden have succeeded for a year or so but rarely longer, perhaps because its native habitat is very difficult to duplicate.

The small yellow lady's slipper (C. parviflorum), found in bogs, and the large yellow (C. parviflorum var. pubescens), growing on hillsides and in rich woods, as well as in swamps, are the most widely distributed and best known of this genus. They have often been transferred from the wild to the home garden. Where they have been given their native soil and environment the stock has increased and seedlings have developed. They have even been brought into conservatory or window garden and forced to flower in February.

The crimson stemless lady's slipper (C. acaule) is found in drier woods and on the stump knolls of swamps in certain locations. It has with difficulty been established in a few gardens.

The small white lady's slipper (C. candidum) occurs locally in boggy meadows. It is a very dainty plant. It grows in at least one wild garden.

The ram's head lady slipper (C. arietinum) is very rare and local. It is a very delicate and pretty thing, purple and white in color.

All of these species are to be seen in season in the Wild Garden of the Minneapolis Park System.

* * * * *

Committee on the protection of Cypripedia: Mrs. Phelps Wyman, chairman; Miss Clara Leavitt, Miss M. G. Fanning, Mrs. C. E. C. Hall, Mrs. E. C. Chatfield, Mr. Guy Hawkins.

* * * * *

Our plant exchange should be of great benefit to our members, such a fine beginning having been made last spring. Send a list of the plants you have for exchange and those you would like to receive to our secretary. These will be posted upon the bulletin board at our meetings, where exchanges can be arranged between the members.

* * * * *

March 23. Public Library, Minneapolis, 2:30 p.m. Meeting of Garden Flower Society. Program:

Our Garden Enemies. Cultural Directions for Trial Seeds. Distribution of Trial Seeds. Minnesota Cypripedia. Have they responded to Cultivation?



BEE-KEEPER'S COLUMN

Conducted by FRANCES JAGER, Professor of Apiculture, University Farm, St. Paul.

IMPORTANCE OF GOOD QUEENS.

The government census of 1910 gives the average of honey production per colony for the State of Minnesota at five pounds per colony. Allowing for mistakes which were made in making up this census, there is no doubt that the average amount of honey produced by a colony is not nearly as high as efficient beekeeping would make it. When some well known beekeepers will average year after year fifty, seventy and even a hundred pounds per colony, there must be something wrong with those who fall far below this amount.

There are many causes responsible for this failure of honey crops. Bad management, no management at all, antiquated or impossible equipment, locality, etc., are all factors contributing towards a shortage in the honey crop, but poor queens are the most universal cause of disappointment. The queen being the mother of the whole colony of bees, the hive will be what she is. If she is of a pure, industrious, gentle, hardy and prolific strain, the colony over which she presides will be uniform, hard working, easy to handle, easy to brave the inclemency of the weather and the severity of our winters, and populous in bees. The bees partake of the characteristics of the queen.

The fact of the matter is, that more than 90% of our Minnesota queens are either black Germans or hybrids, neither of which lend themselves to pleasant and profitable beekeeping. Having been inbred for years will make them still less valuable, and most of them have been inbred for generations.

Among many things in which the beekeepers of Minnesota should begin to improve their beekeeping possibilities, the necessity of good queens comes first. With a new strain of pure, gentle, industrious, leather colored Italian bees, their love for beekeeping should receive a new impetus, leading them to better equipment and better management.

It was with this point in view that the University of Minnesota has secured the best breeding queens obtainable from which to raise several thousands of queens for the use of beekeepers of the state.

These queens will be sold each year during the months of June, July and August at a nominal price of fifty cents each, and not more than three to each beekeeper. The University is ready to book orders now. There is such a demand for these queens that last year only one-quarter of the orders could be filled. Given three pure Italian queens to start with, a beekeeper may easily re-queen his whole bee-yard in the course of a year. Detailed printed instructions how to proceed will be sent out to all buyers of queens free of charge.

Time has come to start bee-keeping on a more profitable basis, and the first step towards better success should be a new strain of queens.



ENTOMOLOGICAL NOTES

By F.L. WASHBURN, Professor of Entomology, University of Minnesota.

RABBITS; RABBIT-PROOF FENCES; FIELD MICE.

Probably the thoughtful orchardist has before this date visited his orchard and trampled the deep snow down around his young fruit trees for a distance of two feet on all sides of each trunk, thus preventing rabbits from reaching the trunk above the protected part, or from eating the branches in the case of low-headed trees. Even at this date, this should be done where the snow lies deep. Frequent tramplings about the young trees also protects the trees from possible injury by field mice working beneath the snow.

This leads us to speak of our experiences with so-called "rabbit-proof" fencing. In the summer time, when an abundance of food is everywhere offered, these small mesh fences are generally effective barriers, but, in the case of the low fences, drifting snow in winter permits an easy crossing, and in the case of the higher fences which have the narrow mesh at the bottom, gradually widening toward the top, it is possible for a rabbit to get his head and body through a surprisingly small space between the wires. The writer was astonished, late last autumn, previous to any snowfall, to see one of these pests, which had jumped from its "nest" in his (the writer's) covered strawberry-bed, run to the inclosing fence, which was provided with the long, narrow mesh above alluded to, raise himself on his hind feet and push his way through a space not more than three inches wide. It would seem, therefore, that one should accept with some reservation the assertion that these fences are actually "rabbit-proof."

PREPAREDNESS FOR (INSECT) WAR.

However one may regard the agitation for or against preparing this country for (or against) war, we are doubtless of all one mind as to the desirability of being prepared to successfully cope with the various insect-pests which are sure to arrive during the coming spring and summer to attack shrubs, fruit trees, berry bushes, melons, cucumbers and practically all of our vegetables. The Entomologist has every reason to be thankful that, early last spring, he laid in a supply of arsenate of lead, Black Leaf No. 40, commercial lime-sulphur, tree tanglefoot, tobacco dust, also providing himself with an abundance of air-slaked lime and a spraying outfit suitable for use in a small experiment garden and orchard at Lake Minnetonka. All gardeners, particularly those who cannot quickly purchase such things on account of distance from a supply, should take time by the forelock and obtain materials now, that they may be ready at hand when very much needed.

AN IMPORTANT DISCOVERY IN ENTOMOLOGY.

An item of importance, and quite far-reaching in its significance is the fact (as reported at the recent meeting of entomologists at Columbus) that the odor in stable manure which attracts house flies, has been "artificially" produced, if that expression may be used, by a combination of ammonia and a little butyric acid. A pan of this, covered by cotton, attracted hundreds of flies which deposited their eggs thereon. The possibilities of making use of this new-found fact are most promising, and the discovery is especially significant in that it opens an immense and practically an untried field in entomological work; that is, the making use of different odors to attract different species of insects. A series of experiments in this direction with the Mediteranean fruit fly, also recently reported, have been most surprising but too extensive to permit of discussion here.

* * * * *

Nurserymen intending to import currants or gooseberries from Europe will be interested in learning that there is a possibility of a federal quarantine on shrubs of this genus grown abroad.

State Entomologist Circular No. 36, issued in January, 1916, and entitled the "Red Rose Beetle," by S. Marcovitch (illustrated), is available for distribution. Application should be accompanied by one cent stamp.



SECRETARY'S CORNER

PLANT COMMERCIAL ORCHARDS.—It is well established that in certain localities at least in the state commercial orcharding is on a safe basis, offering reasonable financial profits if managed by those who take pains to inform themselves on the subject, and are then thorough going enough to practice what they know. This spring will be a good time to plant such an orchard. Orchard trees of suitable size were never more plentiful in the nurseries, and undoubtedly the sorts which you wish to plant can be readily purchased. Ask some of your nearest nurseries for prices as to 500 trees, either two or three years old, whichever you prefer.

GIVE YOUR NEIGHBOR A CHANCE TOO.—This means that you should not be satisfied simply in having secured something of value to yourself, but pass on to others the valuable opportunity which you yourself are enjoying. It is a well established principle of life that the greatest happiness consists in giving happiness to others. As any member can do his neighbor a favor, without any expense to himself, and indeed with profit, by putting his neighbor in touch with the valuable facilities offered by the Horticultural Society, there is evidently a double reason why he should do so. For the small membership fee charged you can put into his hands all the material referred to on the next page. Read it over and lend your neighbor a helping hand.

TIMELY NOTES IN OUR MONTHLY.—There will be in our monthly magazine during most of the rest of the months of the year five pages devoted to timely topics. The experience of the past year or two in this direction encourages us to believe that this will prove to be the most valuable portion of our monthly. One page, as heretofore, will be operated in the interest of garden flowers, edited by Mrs. E. W. Gould; another page, prepared by Prof. R.S. Mackintosh, under the head of "fruit notes," which subject indicates clearly its purpose. Prof. Francis Jager, the Apiarist at University Farm, will prepare another page, pertaining to the keeping of bees. Prof. F.L. Washburn, the State Entomologist, will have a page devoted to insect life as interesting the horticulturist. The fifth page will be handled by Profs. A.G. Ruggles and E.C. Stakman jointly devoted entirely to the subject of "spraying." Each issue of the magazine will contain these notes as applying to the month just following. They will be found well worth studying.

ARE YOU A LIFE MEMBER?—Of course if you are interested in the work of the Horticultural Society and likely to live ten years you ought to be a life member. Experience with this roll for twenty-five years now as secretary of the society indicates that a life membership in the society is almost an assurance that you will prolong your days. A list of deaths in the life membership roll published year by year would indicate that our life members are going to be with us far beyond the average span of human life. Since publishing a list of new life members in the February Horticulturist, there have been added to this life list five names: Tosten E. Dybdal, Elbow Lake, Minn.; Gust Carlson, Excelsior; A.N. Gray, Deerwood; A.M. Christianson, Bismarck, N.D.; Chas. H. Lien, St. Cloud.

If you have already paid your annual fee for this year, send us $4.00 more and your name will be placed on the life roll with the balance of $5.00 to be paid one year from how—or send $9.00, and that makes a full payment.



While it is not the intention to publish anything in this magazine that is misleading or unreliable, yet it must be remembered that the articles published herein recite the experience and opinions of their writers, and this fact must always be noted in estimating their practical value.



THE MINNESOTA HORTICULTURIST

Vol. 44 APRIL, 1916 No. 4



Dwarf Apple Trees.

DR. O.M. HUESTIS, MINNEAPOLIS.

I have here a sample of McIntosh Red grown on a standard tree—a beautiful apple and well colored. Here I have the same variety grown on one of my dwarf trees, not quite as well colored.

Now, the dwarf tree that bore these apples has been planted two years; this is the second year of its growth in my own ground at Mound, on Lake Minnetonka.

I have sixty dwarf trees, five of which have been in eight years, and they have borne six crops of apples. The last ones I got two years ago, and they were two years old when I got them. I planted five of these dwarf trees at the same time that I planted forty standards. The dwarfs have borne more fruit than the standards up to date. Of course, they have only been in eight years. The standards are Wealthy, Duchess, Northwestern Greening and one or two Hibernal and some crabs; the dwarf stock is the Doucin. It is not the Paradise stock, which is grown in England largely and some in France and Germany. My trees are a little higher than my head, and I keep them pruned in a certain way. One of my older trees the second year had ninety-six apples on it. It was a Yellow Transparent, and they came to maturity very well. Several of my trees are about four feet high. I had from twenty-five to fifty apples on them, and they all ripened nicely. The Red Astrachan and the Gravenstein and one Alexander had a few apples on them, and I notice that they are well loaded with fruit buds for another year, which will be the third year planted.

The care of these trees is probably a little more difficult than that of the standard tree, or, at least, I give them special care. I have attempted to bud into some of these, but in my experience they do not take the bud very well. I can take a bud from one of the dwarfs and put it on a standard, and it will grow all right, but I can't take a bud from a standard and put it on a dwarf as successfully. I judge it is because it isn't as rapid growing as the Hibernal, for instance, would be. I notice the Hibernal is the best to take a bud because it is a rapid growing tree and an excellent one on which to graft.

If I wanted to plant an orchard of forty or fifty acres I would plant standard trees and would put the dwarf between the rows, probably twelve feet apart. Mine are about ten feet apart, some of them a little more, but I have two rows eight feet apart each way, nine in each row, which forms a double hedge. I expect them to grow four feet high. I will prune them just as I wish to make a beautiful double hedge between two cottages.



In pruning those that have been in eight years I have tried to use the renewal system as we use it on grapes sometimes. I take out some of the older branches and fruit spurs that have borne two or three years. They must be thinned out. I counted twenty apples on a branch a foot long. I let them grow until they are large enough to stew and then take some off and use them, when apple sauce is appreciated. I thin them every year and get a nice lot of good fruit each year.

I have noticed for two years that I have about ninety-eight per cent. of perfect apples, not a blotch nor a worm. I spray them all, first the dormant spray and then just as the blossoms are falling, and then one other spraying in two weeks and another spray three weeks later.

Mr. Ludlow: Do you mulch the ground?

Dr. Huestis: Well, I dig up the ground a little in the spring. The roots are very near the surface, not very penetrating, and I cultivate around the roots, but I am careful not to cut them. Every fall I put a good mulch of leaves and hay around them. I have been a little fearful they would winter-kill. I wouldn't lose one of them for ten dollars, and I think it well to mulch them, leaving a little space at the base.

Mr. Andrews: Are the roots exposed in some cases?

Dr. Huestis: Yes, I noticed on two of the older trees, those that have been in eight years and have borne six crops, you can see the roots on one side, the top is exposed a little, and I think it would be well to put a little dirt on those another year. The stock of these dwarf trees is slow growing with a rapid growing top, and that is what dwarfs them. I have transplanted one tree three times, which would make four plantings in eight years, and that tree bore almost as much fruit last year as any of them. In another case once transplanted I think the tree is better than the others that were left.



As I said before, if I was planting an orchard I would put dwarf trees between, and by the time they had borne three or four crops, and you were expecting a crop of fruit from the standard trees—about seven years from the time you put them in—I would put the dwarf trees as fillers, costing about forty cents apiece, and by the time they are bearing nicely your friends would have seen those, and I believe would want them at the time you want to take them out. I believe I could sell any of mine for three or four dollars apiece. I think that would be one way of disposing of them after you wanted to take them out of the standard orchard on account of room. That is just a thought of mine.

When I got my first ones eight years ago I gave one to a man who lives in North Minneapolis, at 1824 Bryant Avenue North. Any one can see it who lives up in that section. The first year he had twenty-nine apples, and it has borne each year since. The one which I have transplanted and which bore last year is a Bismarck. It is a little better apple, in my mind, than the Duchess. It is a good deal like the Duchess but is a better keeper and has a better flavor than the Duchess.



I would like to read a quotation to show that the dwarf tree is not a late thing. Recommending dwarf trees for gardens, "Corbett's English Garden," published in 1829, says: "I do hope if any gentleman makes a garden he will never suffer it to be disfigured by the folly of a standard tree, which the more vigorous its growth the more mischievous its growth to the garden."

Marshall says, "The fewer standard trees in the garden the better." Also that the dwarfs are less trouble to keep in order and are generally more productive, and that "placed eight or nine feet distant, pruned and kept in easy manner, they make a fine appearance and produce good fruit." W.C. Drury, highly regarded as a modern English authority, writing in 1900 says: "For the private garden or for market purposes the dwarf, or bush, apple tree is one of the best and most profitable forms that can be planted." He also says: "The bush is one of the best forms of all, as it is of a pleasing shape and as a rule bears good and regular crops."

Mr. Clausen: Don't you have trouble with the mice?

Dr. Huestis: No, sir, have never seen any.

Mr. Clausen: I had an experience a few years ago. My neighbor made a mistake; he was hauling straw around his apple trees, and he happened to take one row of mine. We had no fence between us—and he laid the straw around the trees. I found when I came to examine these trees in the spring they were all girdled around the bottom. I am afraid to mulch.

Dr. Huestis: I never have taken any chances. Ever troubled with the mice at your place, Mr. Weld?

Mr. Weld: A little.

Dr. Huestis: I have never had any trouble with the mice. I always put on a lot of old screen that I take from the cottages that is worn out and put a wire around it so the mice can't get through it. We must protect from mice and rabbits.

Mr. Kellogg: How soon do your dwarf trees pay for themselves?

Dr. Huestis: I don't know. I reckon these four have paid about twelve per cent. on fifteen or twenty dollars this year, and they have right along. They have paid me better so far during the eight years than the standards. That might not apply in eight more years, but for a city lot, a man who has fifty square feet, how many apple trees could he put in that seventeen feet apart? Nine standard trees. In that same plot of fifty feet square he could put in sixty-four dwarfs, and it would be a nice little orchard. I think it is more adapted to the city man. The ordinary farmer would neglect them, and I should hate to see a farmer get them, but I would like to do anything for the man living in the city with only a small plat of land—my vocation being in the city, my avocation being in the country.

Mr. Kellogg: Are those honest representations of the different apples from the dwarf and the standard?

Dr. Heustis: I don't know. Those are a fair sample of those I found in a box on exhibit and are Red McIntosh. They are better colored than mine, most of them are like this (indicating). I find the Yellow Transparent that I have budded on the standard better on the dwarf than on the standard.

Mr. Kellogg: Does it blight any?

Dr. Huestis: No blight; there hasn't ever been a blight. I think that is one reason why I feel I could recommend them quite conscientiously. Other trees have blighted when the conditions were favorable.

* * * * *

TWENTY-FIVE BY SEVENTY FOOT PLOT WILL PRODUCE ENOUGH VEGETABLES FOR A SMALL FAMILY.—Even the smallest back yard may be made to yield a supply of fresh vegetables for the family table at but slight expense if two or three crops are successively grown to keep the area occupied all the time, according to the garden specialists of the department. People who would discharge a clerk if he did not work the year round will often cultivate a garden at no little trouble and expense and then allow the soil to lie idle from the time the first crop matures until the end of the season. Where a two or three crop system is used in connection with vegetables adapted to small areas, a space no larger than twenty-five by seventy feet will produce enough fresh vegetables for a small family. Corn, melons, cucumbers, and potatoes and other crops which require a large area should not be grown in a garden of this size. Half an acre properly cultivated with a careful crop rotation may easily produce $100 worth of various garden crops in a year.



Plums That We Already Have and Plums That Are on the Way.

The Brown Rot (Monilia) a Controlling Factor.

DEWAIN COOK, FRUIT GROWER, JEFFERS.

By the term "plums we already have" for the purpose of this paper we shall include only those varieties that have given general satisfaction over a large territory and for long term of years, and in the writer's opinion every one of such varieties are of full blooded, pure Americana origin.

The DeSoto takes the lead of them all. It undoubtedly has more good points to its credit than any other plum we have ever grown. The Wyant and the freestone Wolf are considered as being the next two most popular varieties. These were all wild varieties, found growing in the woods of Wisconsin and Iowa many years ago.

There are a few other Americana varieties that are nearly as good as are some of those enumerated, but at present we shall not attempt to name them. There are many otherwise fine varieties that are not included in this list of plums we already have, but because of a certain weakness of the blossom they require to be intermingled with other varieties, or the blossoms do not fertilize properly. They only bear well when conditions are very favorable. We class such varieties as being not productive enough.

Many attempts, with more or less—generally less—success have been made to improve our native plums through the growing of seedlings. Mr. H.A. Terry, of Crescent, Iowa, has done more of such work in his day than any other one man. His method was to plant the Americana kinds, like the DeSoto, alongside of varieties of the Hortulana type, like the Miner, then growing seedlings from the best plums thus grown. From such cross bred seedlings Mr. Terry originated and introduced a great many very fine varieties. But where are they today? The Hawkeye and the Terry are about the only ones the general public knows very much about. I will venture this statement, that as far as I know there is no variety of native plum in which there is an intermingling of Hortulana or Chickasaw type that has proven productive enough to be generally profitable.

The Surprise plum belongs to this type, as also does the Terry plum. The Terry plum we want to keep a while longer, not because it is a mortgage lifter for the growers but because of the extraordinarily large size of its fruit, as well as for its fine quality.

There are many injurious insects and fungous diseases that tend to make life a burden to the man who tries to grow plums in a commercial way. Among the insects are the plum curculio and the plum tree borer, better known as the peach tree borer. The curculio sometimes destroys all of the fruit on the tree, and the borer very often will destroy the whole tree of any variety.

Among the fungous diseases are the shot hole fungus and the plum pocket fungus, but the worst of all is that terribly destructive disease of the plum known as the brown rot. This brown rot fungus sometimes destroys the whole crop of certain varieties, besides injuring the trees sometimes as well. This one disease has done more to make plum growing unpopular than all other causes combined. Give us a cheap and efficient remedy, one that will destroy the rot fungus and not do injury to the foliage, buds or tree, and a long stride will have been made towards making plum growing popular as well as profitable.

Japanese hybrid plums.—Just now the Japanese hybrid varieties are attracting considerable attention. One prominent Minnetonka fruit grower said this to me about them:

"Mr. Cook, what is the use of making all of this fuss about these new plums? Plums are only used for the purposes of making jelly anyway, and we can usually get a dollar a bushel for our plums, and they would not pay any more than that, no matter how large and fine they are."

This brought me up with a jerk, and I have concluded that no matter how advanced a place in horticulture these new hybrid plums may eventually take, that there will always be a place for our native varieties, even if only for the purpose of making jelly.

It seems to the writer that in view of the fact that after many years' attempt to improve our native plum through the process of seed selection—and we have made no material advancement in that line—that the varieties of plums that are on the way must almost of necessity be the product of the Americana and some of the foreign varieties of plums.

Mr. Theo. Williams, of Nebraska, a few years ago originated a great many varieties of these hybrid plums. He claimed to have upward of 5,000 of them growing at one time. Only a few of them, however, were ever sent out. Of these the writer has been growing for quite a number of years the Eureka, Emerald, Stella, Omaha, B.A.Q. and some others. As a class they are all reasonably hardy for my section. They grow rapidly, bear early, usually the season after they are planted or the top grafts set. They set fruit more freely and with greater regularity, as the seasons come, than do the best of our native varieties. The fruit is of larger size and of firmer flesh, while the quality of some of them, like the B.A.Q., ranks rather low. The quality of others of them, like the Emerald, is almost beyond comparison.

One year ago in answer to a question by the writer as to why the people of Iowa did not take more interest in the planting of these hybrid plums of Mr. Williams, Mr. C.G. Patten stated that it was because the plums rotted so badly on the trees. Now, Mr. Patten stated the situation exactly—most of these fine varieties are notoriously bad rotters. The brown rot seems to be a disease of moist climate. Nature's remedy is an abundance of sunshine and a dry atmosphere, but we cannot regulate the climate. Prof. Hansen has sent out a few varieties of these Japanese Americana hybrid plums, and our Supt. Haralson is doing a great work along this line. We can only hope—but cannot expect—that Mr. Hansen's hybrids or Mr. Haralson's hybrids as a class will prove more resistant to the brown rot than do those of Mr. Williams of the same class.

We have hopes that from some of Mr. C.G. Patten's hybrids of the Americana and Domestica plum will come some varieties worthy of general planting, and also of Prof. Hansen's crosses of the Americana plum and the Chinese apricots.

There is another class of hybrid plums that are something wonderful in their way, beginning to bear nearly as soon as they are planted, the very earliest of all plums to ripen its fruit, immensely productive and of finest quality. I refer to Prof. Hansen's sand cherry hybrid plums. My opinion is that Prof. Hansen has done all that man can do in the way of producing elegant varieties of this class of fruit. But there is the uncertainty, however, or perhaps I had better say the certainty, that the brown rot will take a good portion of the crop nearly every season—sometimes only a part of the crop, and other seasons it may take the entire crop of these fine sand cherry hybrid plums.

Bordeaux mixture has been the one remedy advertised for years for the control of this disease, and however well it may work in the hands of experts of the various university farms, it has not proved uniformly successful in the hands of the ordinary fruit grower.

Now, if some medicine should be invented, or some magic made, whereby the brown rot would be banished from our orchards then a great many of the fine varieties of hybrid plums would be transferred from the "plums that are on the way" to the list of "plums that we already have." The brown rot is a controlling factor.

Mr. Kellogg: What do you know about the Surprise?

Mr. Cook: Oh, I know a little more than I want to know about it. I have had the Surprise a good many years.

Mr. Kellogg: You have been surprised with it?

Mr. Cook: Yes, sir, I have been surprised quite a bit, but in the last two years since the plum crop failed there have been a few plums on the Surprise trees, but for a great many years when other plums bore heavily we got nothing.

Mr. Hansen: Do you know of any plum that has never had brown rot?

Mr. Cook: In my paper—as they only allowed me fifteen minutes I had to cut it short, and I didn't say very much about the brown rot. All the Americana plums, and all varieties of plums I have ever grown, have in some way been susceptible to the brown rot, but some have been more resistant than others. Now, that is one reason, I believe, why the DeSoto takes the lead. It is less subject to the brown rot. We have here a moist climate, and sunshine and dry atmosphere is the remedy, but some of these varieties have such a peculiar skin it is resistant to brown rot, and it seems certain, I don't know, if it is not on account of the thick skin. The Wolf has a thick skin and is subject to brown rot, but the DeSoto is not subject to that so much but more subject to the curculio. The Japanese hybrid plums, Mr. Williams said at one time—I saw in one of the reports—that he had Japanese plums enough to grow fifty bushels of plums, but he generally only got a grape basket full. He didn't think very much of them. In these sand cherry hybrids, I think Mr. Hansen has done all that man could do.

Mr. Ludlow: What is the difference between the brown rot and the plum pocket fungus?

Mr. Cook: Professor Stakman will tell you that in a later paper, but it is an entirely different disease. The brown rot will work the season through. It will commence on some varieties and work on the small plums and work on the plums half-grown and on the full-grown. The plum pocket fungus, it works on the plums in the spring of the year and sometimes takes the whole crop. The Terry plum, I think, a year ago, it took the whole crop.

Mr. Kellogg: What is the best spray you know of, how often do you apply it and when?

Mr. Cook: Which is that for, for the brown rot?

Mr. Kellogg: Yes, for the plum generally.

Mr. Cook: Oh, I don't know of any. Let me tell you something, the plum as a class is very susceptible to injury from sprays. I know when Professor Luger was entomologist there was some talk of spraying plums for curculio, and some tried it, and while it generally got the curculio it killed the trees, and Professor Luger said that the foliage of the plum was the more susceptible to injury from arsenical poisoning than that of any other fruit in Minnesota. The Japanese hybrid plums, I think, will take injury a little bit quicker than the native, and when you come to the sand cherry plums it is extremely dangerous to spray with anything stronger than rain water.

Prof. Hansen: I want to talk about the lime-sulphur. We will probably have that in the next paper, only I want to say that seems to have taken the place of the Bordeaux mixture. Brown rot, that is something that affects the peach men too. In the state of Ohio in one year the peach men lost a quarter of a million dollars from the brown rot, the same rot that takes our plums. We are not the only ones that suffer from the brown rot. Well, they kept on raising peaches because they learned to control it, and if you are not going to spray I think you better give up. As to trying to get something that won't take the rot, it is something like getting a dog that won't take the fleas. (Laughter.)

Mr. Older: I had considerable experience in putting out seedling plums. When large enough to get to bearing there wasn't a good one in the whole lot. I got some plums, the finest I could pick out, and three years ago they first came into bearing, and one of my neighbors went over there when they were ripe and said they were the best plums he had seen, but since then I have had none. I got some Emerald plums from Mr. Cook. They were nice plums, and when he came to see them he said, "I came to see plums, I didn't come to see apples," but the brown rot gets a good many of them. I had some last year, and just before they ripened the brown rot struck them, and it not only took all the fruit but got the small branches as well. I don't know what to do about the brown rot.

Mr. Drum: I would say that my experience was something like Mr. Older's with the sand cherry crosses. They grew until they were large and I sprayed them with lime-sulphur. I couldn't see any injury from that until they were grown, nearly ripe, and then in spite of me in a single day they would turn and would mummy on the trees. I had a Hanska and Opata and the other crosses, and they bore well. They were right close to them, and the brown rot didn't affect them particularly.

Mr. Ludlow: I would like to ask these experts what is the life of a plum tree. Now, an apple tree, we have them that have been bearing for forty years, but my plum trees that were put out less than twenty years ago, they got to be a thicket and they don't bear any large plums at all. I introduced years ago, if you remember, the Ocheeda plum, that come from seedlings that we found in the wild plum at Ocheeda Lake. It is a very fine plum. I had about twelve bushels this year, and I have never seen a bit of brown rot in that variety of plums, although the other varieties, if they bore at all, they were brown rotted all over. The Ocheeda plum has a very thin skin, and when the rain comes at the right time and the sun comes out they all split open. That is its fault. But my orchard is getting old; it is twenty years old. I had a young man work for me, and he left me and bought a new place. I told him he could take up all the sprouts he wanted of those Ocheeda plums. He did so and put out an orchard of them. I think that was about ten years ago. This year while my plums didn't average me, my Ocheedas didn't average, over an inch or an inch and an eighth in diameter from that old orchard—he had sold out and gone to California—but from that orchard a man that never thinks of cultivating sold three wagon loads of the finest plums I ever saw.

Mr. Kellogg: How large were the wagons? (Laughter.)

Mr. Ludlow: Well, the ordinary wagon box. He hauled them and sold them in town. That was from an orchard that had been left without any cultivation.

Mr. Philips: I have heard George Kellogg say you could prove anything in the world in a horticultural meeting. I was glad to have Mr. Cook say a word in favor of the DeSoto. The first plum I ever bought was a DeSoto thirty-five years ago. I planted it and never saw any brown rot on it and had five bushels on it this year. George Kellogg saw it; I can prove anything by him. (Laughter.) Talking about Prof. Hansen's sand cherry crosses, I have a number of his trees. I have two in particular that are nice trees. My wife the last three years has selected her plums from these trees for preserving and canning. I never saw any brown rot on them. They are nice trees, and I propose to stick by Hansen as long as he furnishes as good stuff as that. The locality makes a great difference in this brown rot. Some of the smaller varieties of Prof. Hansen the brown rot takes. As some one has said, it will take the plums and the twigs after the plums are gone. It may be that the locality has something to do with it.

Mr. Cook: A year ago I was talking with some gentlemen in the lobby of this hotel here and among them was a gentleman from the Iowa society, and I was trying to urge and tell them about the great value of some of those hybrid plums. Mr. Reeves said to me: "Mr. Cook, if you were going out into the woods to live and could only take one variety of plum with you, what variety would you take?" If he said five or six different varieties I would have made a different answer but he said only one variety, and I said it would be the DeSoto, and his answer was, "So would any other man that has right senses about him."

Mr. Anderson: It was my pleasure some time ago, I think it was in 1896, to set out a few plum trees, DeSotos, and those trees grew and grew until they bore plums, and I was very much pleased with them. It was also my fortune about that time to sell plums that another man had grown, such varieties as the Ocheeda, the Wolf and the Wyant. They were such beautiful plums, and I obtained such beautiful prices for them, I was very much enthused over growing plums. I purchased a number of trees of that variety, but up to the present time I have never marketed a bushel of plums from any tree of that kind. The DeSotos bore plums until they died a natural death, which was last year.

Mr. Goudy: I have one DeSoto in my orchard which is seven years old, never had a plum on it, never had a blossom on it. What shall I do? (Laughter.)

Mr. Ludlow: Cut it out.



Spraying Plums for Brown Rot.

PROF. E. C. STAKMAN, MINN. EXP. STATION, UNIVERSITY FARM, ST. PAUL.

The brown rot of plum is without doubt one of the important limiting factors in plum-growing in Minnesota. In seasons favorable to its development, losses of from twenty to fifty per cent. of the crop in individual orchards are not uncommon.

Experiments on the control of the disease have been carried on by the sections of "Plant Pathology and Tree Insects and Spraying," of the Minnesota Experiment Station, since 1911. No accurate results could be obtained in 1912 and 1915 on account of crop failure in the orchards selected for experiment. Results are available for the years 1911, 1913 and 1914.

Brown rot is caused by a fungus (Sclerotinia cinerea (Bon.) Wor.). Every plum grower knows the signs of the disease on the fruit. Blossoms, leaves and twigs may also be affected. The diseased blossoms become brown and dry, and fall from the tree; the diseased leaves become brown and may die. Young twigs may also be killed.

Infection may occur at blossoming-time. The amount of blossom blight depends very largely on weather conditions; in fairly warm, moist weather there is usually more than in drier weather. The same is true of the rot on the fruit; during periods of muggy weather it may spread with amazing rapidity. The rot does not usually attack the fruit until it is nearly or quite ripe, although green plums may rot, especially if they have been injured. It is important to know that a large percentage of rotted plums have been injured by curculio. Counts have shown that in many cases as much as eighty-five per cent. of the rot followed such injury.

Rotted plums should be destroyed for two reasons: (1) The spores produced on them may live during the winter and cause infection in the spring; (2) if the mummies fall to the ground, late in April or early in May of the second spring the cup fungus stage may develop on them. This cup fungus produces a crop of spores capable of causing infection.

Spraying experiments, the summarized results of which are given here, show that the disease can be fairly well controlled even in badly affected orchards.

Some of the experiments were carried on in the orchards at University Farm and some in commercial orchards. There were from twelve to forty-five trees in each plot, and the trees on which counts were to be made were selected before the rot appeared. The percentages given below refer to fruit rot and do not include blossom or twig blight. The object was to determine the times for spraying and the most effective spray mixtures. Details are for the most part omitted, and the results of various experiments are averaged.

For convenience the times of spraying are designated as follows:

1. When buds are still dormant. 2. When blossom buds begin to show pink. 3. When fruit is size of a pea. 4. Two weeks after third spraying. 5. When fruit begins to color.

It did not pay to apply Spray 1. In the plots on which applications 1, 2, 3 and 4 were made there was an average of 6.3 per cent. of rot, while in those from which Spray 1 was omitted there was an average of 6.7 per cent. rot, a difference so slight as to be negligible. Neither did Spray 4 seem to pay, there being an average of 10.9 per cent. brown rot when it was applied and 11.4 per cent. when it was omitted.

The schedule finally adopted was therefore the application of Sprays 2, 3, and 5. Spray 2 is necessary to prevent blossom blight, although it has not always reduced the amount of rot on the fruit. Spray 5 is the most important in reducing the amount of rot. In all of the experiments during three years the average amount of rot in the sprayed plots which did not receive Spray 5, was 10.7 per cent. On the plots which received Spray 5, with or without the other sprays, the average amount of rot was 4.6 per cent., and the average on unsprayed plots was 34.8 per cent. Excellent results were sometimes obtained by applying only Spray 5, although this did not, of course, have any effect on blossom blight. In 1913 the amount of brown rot in one plot which received only Spray 5 was 3.3 per cent., while in the unsprayed plots it was 33.9 per cent. In 1914 the amount of rot was reduced from 38.8 per cent. in unsprayed plots to 6.5 per cent. in the plots to which Spray 5 was applied. Possibly Spray 3 could be omitted without seriously interfering with results; success in controlling the rot with Spray 5 alone seems to indicate this. It was hoped to settle the matter during the past summer, but spring frosts spoiled the experiment.

For the present it seems advisable to recommend the application of Sprays 2, 3, and 5. In the first two, two and a half pounds of arsenate of lead paste, or one and one-fourth pounds of the powder should be added to each fifty gallons of spray mixture in order to kill the curculio. In the plots sprayed in this way in 1911 ninety-six per cent. of the fruit was perfect, while in the unsprayed plots only 81.6 per cent. was perfect, and in 1913 and 1914 the amount of brown rot was reduced from 34.8 per cent. to 4.6 per cent. Several growers have reported excellent results from these three applications, and there is no reason why other growers should not duplicate them.



The efficiency of various fungicides was tried. Self-boiled lime-sulphur, 8-8-50; commercial lime-sulphur, 1 to 40; 2-4-50 and 3-4-50 Bordeaux; iron sulphide made up with 1 to 40 commercial lime-sulphur, and iron sulphide made up with 10-10-50 self-boiled lime-sulphur were tried and all gave good results. Commercial lime-sulphur, 1 to 40, has been used in commercial orchards with excellent results, and it will probably be used more than the other spray mixtures because it is so easy to use. Possibly weaker solutions of lime-sulphur would do just as well as 1 to 40. This will be determined, if possible, during the summer of 1916.

Good results were obtained only when a high pressure was maintained in spraying. There was a clearly observable difference between plots sprayed with low pressure and those sprayed with a pressure of more than 175 pounds. For large orchards a power sprayer is desirable; for small orchards a barrel sprayer with an air-pressure tank attached is large enough. Such an outfit can be bought for $35 or $40 and can do good work.

The cost of spraying three times should not exceed fifteen cents a tree. The results from spraying orchards which contain a great deal of brown rot and have never before been sprayed will probably not be so good the first year as in better kept orchards, but by spraying regularly each season the disease can be well controlled.

Mr. Cashman: Please state what you mean by 3-4-50 there.

Mr. Stakman: 3-4-50 Bordeaux mixture means three pounds of bluestone or copper sulphate, four pounds of lime, and fifty gallons of water. The copper sulphate should be dissolved in twenty-five gallons of water, the best way being to put it into a sack and hang the sack in the water. The lime should be slaked and then enough water added to make twenty-five gallons of milk of lime. Here is where the important part of making up the spray comes in. Two people should work together and pour the milk of lime and the bluestone solution together so that the streams mix in pouring. It is very important that the mixing be thorough and the mixture should be used fresh.

The President: Do you add any Paris green at any time or arsenate of lead?

Mr. Stakman: Always add arsenate of lead two times, when the buds are swelling and when the plums are the size of green peas.

The President: How much?

Mr. Stakman: I would rather leave that to Professor Ruggles. We used from 2-1/2 to 3 pounds and Mr. Ruggles, I think, found 2-1/2 pounds was enough.

The President: That is, 2-1/2 pounds to 50 gallons of water with the other ingredients?

Mr. Stakman: Yes.

Mr. Dyer: I would like to ask if you have ever used arsenate of lead for spraying plums?

Mr. Stakman: In the experiments which we conducted in co-operation with Mr. Ruggles, of the Division of Entomology, we always used arsenate of lead in the first two sprayings to kill the curculio.

Mr. Dyer: I had quite an experience, so I want to know what your experience was.

Mr. Stakman: We never had any trouble with it.

Mr. Dyer: I have had an experience of thirty years, and I have never seen or had on my place any brown rot, and I never was troubled with any curculio, and I practically always used arsenate of lead.

Mr. Cashman: Isn't it a fact if you begin spraying your plum trees when they are young and spray them early, at the right time, you have very little trouble with the brown rot? And spray them every year?

Mr. Stakman: Yes, that is it. You might be disappointed the first year if the orchard had never been sprayed, but by spraying year after year you finally cut it down.

Mr. Cashman: You said a pressure of 200 pounds ought to be used?

Mr. Stakman: Yes, but it isn't necessary to get an expensive power sprayer to keep up that pressure. There are sprayers on the market that cost from $30 to $40 which have a pressure tank by which the pressure can be maintained at from 175 to 250 pounds without any great amount of trouble, that is, for a small orchard. If you have a big enough orchard for a power sprayer, of course get it.

Mr. M'Clelland: This summer my plum trees, the leaves all turned brown and came off. What is the reason?

Mr. Stakman: When did it happen?

Mr. M'Clelland: Along in August, I think; July or August.

Mr. Stakman: What kind of soil were they on?

Mr. M'Clelland: Clay.

Mr. Stakman: Did you spray?

Mr. M'Clelland: Yes, sir, I sprayed.

Mr. Stakman: What did you use?

Mr. M'Clelland: Lime-sulphur, I think.

Mr. Stakman: Did the whole leaf turn brown?

Mr. M'Clelland: Yes, sir, the whole leaf turned brown and came off.

Mr. Stakman: How strong did you use the lime-sulphur?

Mr. M'Clelland: Not very strong.

Mr. Stakman: If you use very strong lime-sulphur you sometimes get such an effect on both plums and apples. Sometimes the leaves fall, and almost immediately you get a new crop of leaves.

Mr. M'Clelland: This was in August.

Mr. Stakman: There was a perfect crop of new leaves?

Mr. M'Clelland: Yes, sir.

Mr. Stakman: My only suggestion would be that you used the lime-sulphur too strong. That might account for it.

Mr. Sauter: I never sprayed until this year. I tried it this year and with good results. I sprayed my apple trees at the same time, and I sprayed the plums with the same thing I sprayed the apple trees with. I had nice plums and nice apples; last year I had hardly any.

Mr. Stakman: What did you use?

Mr. Sauter: Lime-sulphur and some black leaf mixture. I used it on the plum trees and the apple trees, and afterwards I used arsenate of lead.

Mr. Stakman: You didn't get any injury to the plum trees?

Mr. Sauter: No, sir, we had nice plums.

A Member: I have seventeen plum trees, and I have only sprayed with kerosene emulsion and the second time put in some Paris green, and I have never seen any of the brown rot, but there have been a good many of the black aphids on the plum trees, on the end of the branches. I cut them off and burned them. I didn't know whether that would be the end of it or not.

Mr. Ruggles: Why don't you use "black leaf 40," 1/2 pint in 50 gallons of the spray liquid. It can be used in combination with arsenate of lead and lime-sulphur or arsenate of lead and Bordeaux mixture.

If you wash them with black leaf 40 it will kill all the aphids. I did that myself this summer.

A Member: Please give us a little better explanation of what black leaf 40 is.

Mr. Ruggles: It is an extract of tobacco that is for sale by wholesale drug companies and stores, or you can get it from Kentucky, from the Tobacco Products Company, at Louisville, Ky., or Grasseli Chemical Co., St. Paul. I am not advertising, Mr. President, but they will send you a small package for seventy-five cents, about half a pint. Of course, that looks kind of expensive, but it will go a long way. I think possibly it is the best thing we have to combat lice.

Mr. Stakman: Plum pocket is caused by a fungus which is supposed to infect mostly when the flower buds are just beginning to swell, especially in cold, wet weather. Plum pocket causes the fruit to overgrow and destroys the pit, and big bladder or sack-like fruits are produced instead of the normal fruit. The fungus that causes it gets into the twig and is supposed to live there year after year. Therefore pathologists usually recommend cutting out and burning affected branches and even trees that bear pocketed plums several seasons in succession. Our experiments with plum pocket have not extended far enough to enable me to say anything definite about it.

Mr. Hall: With us in western Minnesota this year this plum pocket got all the plums that the frost didn't get. If we were to cut off the twigs we would have to chop off the trees.

Mr. Stakman: When a tree becomes so badly infected that practically all of the branches produce pocketed plums year after year you can't expect very much normal fruit. Sometimes you might get some, but usually not very many.

Mr. Graves (Wisconsin): Do you use your black leaf 40 in conjunction with your Bordeaux or lime-sulphur?

Mr. Ruggles: Yes, you can.

Mr. Graves: Doesn't it counteract the result?

Mr. Ruggles: No, it does not.

Mr. Stakman: I used this year lime-sulphur and black leaf 40 together.

Mr. Graves: You say you got the same results from black leaf 40 in that mixture?

Mr. Stakman: It killed the plant lice; that is all I wanted.

Mr. Graves: We had some experiences that indicated that black leaf counteracted the other results.

Mr. Stakman: Yes, sir, I think that has been the impression, but I think there have been some experiments more recently to show that the black leaf 40 can be used in conjunction with other sprays without counteracting their results.

Mr. Richardson: Did you ever know the plum pocket to come unless we had cold weather about the time of blossoming and lots of east wind?

Mr. Stakman: Yes, a little; I have seen it mostly when there was cold weather, however, and as I said before it usually isn't so serious unless there is cold, wet weather.

Mr. Richardson: I settled out in Martin County, Minnesota, in 1866, and in all my experience I never saw plum pocket unless we had the right kind of cold weather at the time of the blossoming. I had my plums all killed and destroyed one year and never did anything for it, and when we had the right kind of weather I never had any trouble.

Mr. Stakman: When you have cold, wet weather, as I mentioned before, infection takes place much more rapidly than it does at other times. There is some evidence to show that the fungus lives in the twigs and that affected ones should be cut out.

Mr. Richardson: Yes, but these didn't bear any for four or five years, and when we got the right kind of weather I got good plums.

Mr. Norwood: My experience is something like this man's. I have had my plums killed off as many as five years with the plum pocket and then had a good crop of plums. I sprayed with lime-sulphur.

Mr. Stakman: When did you spray?

Mr. Norwood: I spray just before the buds open.

Mr. Stakman: The flower or leaf?

Mr. Norwood: Flower, and then I spray when the plums are well started, just before they begin to ripen.

Mr. Stakman: Were you spraying for the pocket or brown rot?

Mr. Norwood: I used lime-sulphur and arsenate of lime.

Mr. Stakman: Of course, spraying after buds open wouldn't do any good for the plum pockets at all.

Mr. Norwood: I spray mainly for the brown rot, and I have pretty good luck.

Mr. Cashman: Have you had any experience in using orchard heaters to save plums in cold nights?

Mr. Stakman: I will ask Mr. Cady to answer that.

Mr. Cady: No, I haven't tried to use them.

Mr. Cashman: We tried it this year, and we saved our plum crop. We have tried it the last four years and saved our plum crop each year. We also sprayed each year and had a very good crop of plums when neighbors who had not sprayed had very few, and I am satisfied if we use the proper ingredients and spray properly at the right time, and occasionally use an orchard heater when there is any danger of freezing, that we will raise a good crop of most any plum that is hardy enough for this climate.

A Member: What kind of heaters do you use?

Mr. Cashman: We use oil heaters. We use crude oil, the same oil we use in our tractor engine.

A Member: Where do you buy your heaters?

Mr. Cashman: We have them made at the hardware store, of sheet iron, with a cover. We put about two gallons of oil in this heater. There is a small piece of waste that is used as a wick, which we light from a torch. It will heat quite a large space sufficiently for two or three hours and prevent frost.

Mrs. Glenzke: Do you put a canvas over the tree or leave it uncovered?

Mr. Cashman: We do not put anything over the tree.

Mr. Stakman: What does your oil cost?

Mr. Cashman: About eight or nine cents a gallon.

Prof. Hansen: Just a thought occurred to me that out west on the Pacific coast where men have to get down to business in order to raise fruit they have these horticultural commissioners that have absolute police power to make orchard men clean up. They will come into your old orchard and pull it up and burn it and add it to your taxes, charge it up to you, if you don't clean up. The same sort of police power should prevail here. If a man has an old plum orchard that is diseased through and through, it won't do for him to tell his tale of woe year after year and not do anything. A county agent will come along and clean it up for him. After it is cleaned up it will be an easier proposition. If you are not going to keep up with the times and spray, then the county agent ought to have police power to burn the orchard. Either spray or go out of the plum business.

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TO MAKE CONCENTRATED APPLE CIDER ON A COMMERCIAL SCALE.—The specialists of the fruit and vegetable utilization laboratory of the department have completed arrangements for a commercial test of the recently discovered method of concentrating apple cider by freezing and centrifugal methods. As a result, a cider mill in the Hood River Valley, Ore., will this fall undertake to manufacture and put on the retail market 1,000 gallons of concentrated cider, which will represent 5,000 gallons of ordinary apple cider with only the water removed.

The new method, it is believed, makes possible the concentrating of cider in such a way that it will keep better than raw cider, and also be so reduced in bulk that it can be shipped profitably long distances from the apple growing regions. The old attempts to concentrate cider by boiling have been failures because heat destroys the delicate flavor of cider. Under the new method nothing is taken from the cider but the water, and the resultant product is a thick liquid which contains all the apple-juice products and which can be restored to excellent sweet cider by the simple addition of four parts of water. The shippers and consumers, therefore, avoid paying freight on the water in ordinary cider. In addition, the product, when properly barreled, because of its higher amount of sugar, keeps better than raw cider, which quickly turns to vinegar.

The process, as described by the department's specialists, consists of freezing ordinary cider solid. The cider ice is then crushed and put into centrifugal machines such as are used in making cane sugar. When the cider ice is whirled rapidly the concentrated juice is thrown off and collected. The water remains in the machine as ice.

At ordinary household refrigerator temperatures this syrup-like cider will keep perfectly for a month or six weeks, and if kept at low temperatures in cold storage will keep for prolonged periods. At ordinary house temperatures it, of course, will keep a shorter time.

To make the concentrated syrup, the cider mill must add to its equipment an ice-making machine and centrifugal machinery, so that the process is not practicable on a small scale. The specialists are hopeful, however, that the commercial test soon to be inaugurated in Oregon will show that it will be possible for apple growers to concentrate their excess cider and ship it profitably to the far South or to other non-producing regions. The specialists also believe that it will enable apple producers to prolong the market for cider.—U.S. Dept. of Agri., Oct., 1914.



How Mr. Mansfield Grows Tomatoes.

MRS. JENNIE STAGER, SAUK RAPIDS.

Somewhere around 1870 Mr. Wm. Mansfield, of Johnsons Creek, Wis., commenced to apply what Gov. Hoard, of Wisconsin, told him was "persevering intelligence," to the propagating and improving of the tomato, and he soon found out that the tomato was capable of almost unlimited improvement. He has made a specialty of the tree tomato, of which he says he has demonstrated to the world that in the Mansfield tree tomato he has produced one of the greatest wonders of the age. All who have seen them, tasted or grown them, with even a small degree of good sense, are loud in their praise for their good qualities: wonderful growth of tree, beauty of fruit, smoothness, solidity, flavor, earliness, etc.

In giving directions how to grow them he says you should remember that if your brightest child is raised among Indians he is not likely to become president. Neither will the tree tomato if thrown on a brush pile, or just stuck in a poor, dry place and left to care for itself, be ready to jump on your table, on the Fourth of July, or any other month, a ripe, delicious, two-pound tomato.

He says first get your seed of some reliable person, who can warrant it pure and all right. Then at the proper time, which in this climate would be some time in March, get some rich old earth for boxes in your house, hotbeds or greenhouse. Sow the seed, cover lightly, wet down every day and keep warm, with all the sun possible. When up ten days transplant to other boxes, six inches apart, and not less than four inches deep. Keep wet and give all the light and sun you can, and by the time it is safe to set them outside they should stand from twelve to twenty-four inches in height, with bodies half an inch thick.

To prepare the ground.—First select a place as near water as possible, and also, if you can, let your rows run east and west. Throw out dirt two spades deep, then put in three or four inches of night soil if you can get it, if not use hen manure and wood ashes, equal parts, or some other strong manure, in the bottom of trench. Then fill up the trench with the best dirt you can get, mixed with well rotted stable manure, as no fresh manure must come near the roots or bark to rot them.

Now set out your plants without disturbing the dirt about the roots. Set eighteen inches apart in the row and have the dirt in the trenches a little lower than at the sides. Place a strong stake at each plant or a trellis and tie them to it as fast as set. Then if it does not rain use hard, soft, cold or warm water and give plenty each day. As your plants commence to grow, just above each leaf will start a shoot. Let only the top of the plant, and only one or two of the best branches grow, so as to have not over one or two of the best stems to run up. Now the buds for blossoms show themselves on the tops of the vines, and a few inches below. Just above each leaf, a shoot starts; nip off every one of these just as soon as they appear. As the lower leaves get brown and old pick them off. Train the fruit as it grows to the sun. Tie often and well. Let no useless wood grow. Give all the sun possible and water, water and then water. Then you can take the cake on tomatoes.



Mr. Mansfield's record twenty-six years ago, at Johnsons Creek, Wis., was: Height of tomato tree, eleven feet. Weight of single tomato, two pounds six ounces. He says, since he has moved to North Dakota, his tomato has in no wise deteriorated.



Annual Report, 1915, Central Trial Station.

PROFS. LE ROY CADY AND R. WELLINGTON, UNIVERSITY FARM.

Since the coming of Prof. Wellington to the Station to take up the pomological and vegetable divisions the work of this Station, has been divided, Prof. Wellington taking the fruit and vegetable experimental work, while Prof. Cady continues the work in ornamentals, and on that basis the reports will be made this year.

Ornamentals.—The campus of University Farm has been very much enlarged this year by the building of the Gymnasium, and consequent parking about it, and the grading of an athletic field. This will call for considerable planting work next spring.

The season has been exceptionally good for the growth of all ornamental stock. All came through last winter in good shape. A late frost killed many of the early flowering plants, and this prevented the forming of fruit on such plants as barberry and wahoo. About 400 seedling paeonies flowered again this year. Some of these are promising. An excellent block of aquilegia was flowered. A trial ground of some hundred or more annuals was maintained and proved very interesting. It is hoped that many more annual novelties may be tried out this year. The perennial garden established last year was added to and furnished something of interest the whole season. It will be the aim of the Division to have in this garden all the annuals and perennials of value in this section. Some new shrubs were added by purchase and through the Bureau of Plant Industry. The hedges have proved an interesting exhibit again this year, and it is planned to add a number of new ones to the group next season. About seventy-five varieties of chrysanthemums were flowered this autumn and were much enjoyed by our visitors.

Fruit.—This year has been a very poor fruit year owing to the freeze on May 18, when the thermometer dropped to 26 degrees Fahrenheit. At that time a very promising crop of apples was frozen on the trees. Currants and gooseberries were also frozen on the bushes, and the young shoots were frozen on the grape vines. Later the grape vines sent out secondary shoots which bore a small crop of late maturing fruit. Regardless of the heavy freeze an apple was found here and there throughout the orchard, although no one variety seemed to be particularly favored. On one-year-old Compass and Dyehouse cherry trees a few fruits were borne, and a similar amount of fruit was produced on one-year-old Sapa and Skuya plums. The old plum seedling orchard, which is located to the south of the college buildings and is partially protected by a wooded hill to the north, gave about five per cent of a crop. The one-year-old raspberries and blackberries bore a small crop, and the new strawberry bed, containing over 150 varieties, yielded a good crop. Records were made on the blossoming dates of practically all the varieties grown at the Station, and complete descriptions were made of all the strawberry flowers, fruits and plants.



Plants were taken from the strawberry bed and used for setting out a new bed, which is located on level and uniform ground. By another year sufficient data should be at hand to report on the performance of the varieties tested.

The aphids were very numerous and unfortunately caused the defoliation of all the currants with the exception of the blacks. A new sidewalk through the currant patch necessitated the transplanting of about one-half of the varieties, and so the prospect for a good currant crop next season is poor. The mildew attacked the Poorman gooseberry very severely but did practically no damage to the native varieties, as the Carrie and Houghton. Blight was a negligible factor, and what little appeared was removed as soon as noted. This year's rest, especially as it has been coupled with a good growing season, should be very favorable for an abundant crop in 1916.

In summing up the varieties at the Trial Station, it is of interest to note that the following number are under observation: 235 apple, 1 apricot, 15 cherry, 3 peach, 6 pear, 70 plum, 23 blackberry, 3 dewberry, 14 red currant, 3 black currant, 2 white currant, 13 gooseberry, 26 grape, 4 black raspberry, 22 red raspberry, 1 purple raspberry and 157 strawberry.

Vegetables.—The vegetable work has been concentrated on the bean, cucumber, lettuce, pea, onion, potato and tomato. The chief work with the bean and pea has been to isolate desirable canning types from the present varieties. Selection has also been carried on with the lettuce, with the object of securing a head type which matures uniformly. Onion bulbs of various types have self-fertilized, and desirable fixed strains will be separated if possible. Incidentally, the inheritance of various types and colors of the onion is under observation. In the tomato the influence of crossing on yield and earliness has been studied. Increases nearly as high as five tons have been obtained, and the prospects are very bright for securing valuable combinations for gardeners who use greenhouses and high-priced land. Results of this work will probably soon be published in a station bulletin.



A better type of greenhouse cucumber is being sought by combining the European and White Spine varieties. From past experience the author knows that a uniform type that is well adapted to market purposes can be obtained, and the only question will be its productiveness. Unfortunately hybridizing was not performed early enough in the season, and disease prevented the making of crosses. This coming season the work will be repeated.

The main work of the year has been on the potato, and the chief problem has been on the determination of the cause of degeneracy. Incidentally, many varieties have been tested, and the exchange of seed with the Grand Rapids, Crookston and Duluth stations has been started. If possible, the effect of varying climatic and soil conditions on the potato will be noted.

A few vegetable varieties have been tested and among them the Reading Giant, a rust-proof asparagus, has proved promising. Malcolm, the earliest Canadian sweet corn, ripened very early and will be tested further. Washington, a late sweet corn ripening between Crosby and Evergreen, made an exceptionally good showing and may prove of much value for market purposes. The Alacrity tomato was found to be similar to the Earliana and superior in no way. Bonny Best and John Baer tomatoes produced smooth, desirable fruit and are deserving of a wide test.

The much advertised "seed tape" was given a trial, and it proved satisfactory in most cases. For kitchen gardeners who are ignorant of planting distances, methods of planting and varieties, and who can afford to pay a higher price for their seed, the tape may prove of value, that is, if a high grade of seed is maintained.

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A CORRECTION.—In O. W. Moore's interesting article on "Sexuality in Plants," which appeared in the November (1915) number of The Horticulturist, two errors were present. The first is merely typographical, as Kaelreuter's name, page 411, should be spelled Kolreuter. The second, however, is misleading, as it states that the process of fertilization is called "Mendel's Law." It is true that Mendel's Law is based upon fertilization, but it concerns simply the splitting up of certain characters into definite mathematical proportions. For example, Mendel found that when he crossed a yellow and green pea the first generation produced only yellow peas. These peas when self-fertilized split up into practically three yellows to one green. By self-fertilizing the progeny of the second generation it was found that one-third of the yellows bred true for yellow, and two-thirds of the yellows broke up into yellow and green, showing that they were in a heterozygous condition, and that all the greens bred true for green. At the present time this method of segregation has been proved to hold for many easily differentiated characters in both the animal and plant kingdom, but much more experimental work will have to be done before it can be said to hold for all inheritable characters.—Prof. Richard Wellington, University Farm.



Rose Culture.

MARTIN FRYDHOLM, ALBERT LEA, MINN.

(Annual Meeting, 1916, So. Minn. Hort. Society.)

Rose culture is one of the most fascinating occupations in the line of horticulture. But when you come to talking or writing about it you scarcely know where to begin or what to say, there passes before your eye an exhibition of such an amazing fragrance and beauty of varying colors. Even now as I am writing these lines I can see with my mind's eye every rose in my garden, some in their full glory, filling the air with the sweet fragrance; others just opening; others in bud; and so on in an ever pleasing variety. I have taken special interest in roses for some ten or twelve years and have grown a good many different varieties of them with success, good, bad and indifferent. I have succeeded well with some of the hybrid perpetual roses. At the present time I have in my garden Paul Neyron, General Jacquiminot, Ulric Brunner, Black Prince, Etoile De France, Frau Karl Droschky and Marshall P. Wilder, also others of which I have lost the names. Of climbing roses I have Crimson Rambler, Thousand Beauties, Prairie Queen and Dorothy Perkins. All the above named are everbloomers, except the climbers, and all need careful winter protection.

How to grow them.—Get two year old No. 1 plants and prepare your soil just like you would for your vegetable garden. If your soil is not particularly rich, spade in a liberal quantity of well rotted manure and mix well with soil. Set your plants and keep up clean cultivation all summer and give them plenty of water, and you will have an abundance of roses the first year. In the fall get some clean straw, bend your rose bushes over, put a fence post across on top of them to hold them down and then cover with straw to a depth of one foot. Or if you have a number of them planted in one row, make a long box about two feet wide and about twenty inches deep, fill about half full of straw, then place along side of the row of plants, bend your plants down lengthwise the row, then tip the box over them, put some straw around sides of box and on the outside put some posts or boards on to hold it down, when you will have the best protection possible. Right here I want to put in a word of warning, and that is, if you do not like to do extra work don't attempt to grow roses; in other words, if you are lazy they don't like you well enough to stay with you, for it means work and lots of it.