Chapter C: S. Harrison, York, Neb (1)

The instance recited below has nothing particularly to do with horticulture but a good deal to do with a "horticulturist," C. S. Harrison, of York, Neb., that picturesque veteran in horticulture, who has been an attendant at our meetings now for so many years, adding such a strong interest to our annual gatherings. Mr. Harrison recited at our late meeting the incident referred to here--without the denouement, which came to him in California this winter, where he met Mr. Lindbergh, one of Minnesota congressmen. As a result of this incident we had Mr. Harrison with again at our late summer meeting.--Secy.

In 1861 I was living in Sauk Center, Minn., where I preached the first sermon. I had a tract of country under my care 100 miles in extent and had all sorts of work to do. Ten miles from Sauk Center there was a sturdy Swede who was at one time speaker in one branch of the Swedish parliament and for a while secretary to the king. He moved to Minnesota about the year '60. It seems he had not learned the art of graft, and he was poor. He took up a preemption and built him a little log house 12×16. One day he took a load of logs to the mill and, stumbling, fell on the saw. This caught him in the back and split it open, and also took a stab at his right arm.

It was hot weather and no surgeon within fifty miles. I followed him to his home; we did not think he could live. I picked out the sawdust and rags from his back and kept the wounded arm wrapped in cold water, and now for a surgeon I got a horse from a neighbor and a man to ride him. I said, "Don't hurt the horse but go as fast as it is safe." Twenty miles ahead I knew another man with whom he could exchange horses, and then another relay brought him to the doctor. Dr. Hunter proved to be a good surgeon. We had kept the patient with such care that with his clean habits and robust constitution he underwent the operation all right. I helped the doctor, and we took off the arm near the shoulder. I had a busy time until the surgeon came. I stayed with the man all day, then drove home ten miles and was by his side early. It took the doctor about three days to get there. The horses were poor, and the auto did not exist even in a dream. By the next December the old hero was out chopping rails with his left hand.

How poor the people were! Every dollar had a big task before it. The good doctor only charged $20. I rode quite a distance--got a little here and there and paid the bill. A son of the old man, C. A. Lindbergh, is now representative in congress from the 6th district of Minnesota. We discovered each other this winter. I have kept up a pleasant correspondence. His daughter, Eva, who helps her father, has just written me that she is going to be married in Minneapolis in June, and she wants me to perform the ceremony. All the friends and relatives will be there, and she wants the man who saved her grandpa. Thus, after fifty-five years, stirring memories of the past are awakened and happy anticipations of the future.--C. S. Harrison.

SECRETARY'S CORNER

MORE EVERBEARING STRAWBERRIES.--Mr. Walter Ferguson, of Mankato, has pretty near the record number of strawberry plants raised last year. From four plants of No. 1017 everbearing strawberries he reports having raised several over six hundred. He says he reset twelve new plants in July and they produced over three hundred.

ADVANCE PREMIUM LIST, ANNUAL MEETING, 1916.--Elsewhere in this number will be found an advance list of premiums to be offered on vegetables and apples at the coming annual meeting of the society. There will be practically no change from this list, though there may be slight additions to it. Possible exhibitors may feel safe to save material for exhibition in accordance with the premiums therein offered.

PASSING OF J.F. BENJAMIN.--Members of the society who have attended our annual meetings for the last ten or more years will readily recall the face and figure of this very loyal member of the society, who was always at hand to serve in any capacity as opportunity came to him. Mr. Benjamin was a successful fruit grower, not only from a financial standpoint but from his love of the art. We hope to publish a suitable sketch of his life at some later date.

MUNICIPAL CAMPS IN NATIONAL FORESTS.--The City of Fresno, California, has established a fifteen-acre camp in an adjoining national forest, providing low cost outings for the school children of that city and their parents. Los Angeles is doing something similar on even a larger scale, and other municipalities are following suit. Minnesota has splendid national forests, and the time may come when the state or some of the municipalities of the state may be able to make similar use of these forests for the benefit of our people who are not able to go to larger expense to secure needed summer outing.

THE APPLE CROP.--The Department of Agriculture in its August 1st report forecasts an apple crop of seventy-one million barrels against seventy-six million last year and a yearly average for the past five years of sixty-six million. The favored regions in apple growing this year are in the New England states and the Pacific states, the Central states showing a very large falling off in the apple crop, anywhere from four-fifths to one-fourth of previous years.

NATIONAL VEGETABLE GROWERS' ASSOCIATION.--It seems there is an association of this character, called "Vegetable Growers' Association of America," and it will hold its next annual meeting in LaSalle Hotel, Chicago, September 26-29. Representatives of local vegetable growers' associations' will probably do well to get in touch with this national gathering. If any go from this state the secretary will be glad to receive from them a report of the meeting. Marketing, soil fertility, heating, packing, spraying and other subjects will be covered on the program. For further information address James B. Foley, Secretary, 3100 South Spaulding Avenue, Chicago.

APPLE TREES AS A WINDBREAK.--John W. Maher, of Devils Lake, N.D., in correspondence has spoken at two different times of the use of apple trees as one feature of windbreaks in his vicinity, using such varieties as Duchess, Patten's Greening, Hibernal, etc. In this connection he says "probably it is only the amateur horticulturist who sets a row of young apple trees in the stubble fields as a windbreak for apple grafts, but this has been done here and the windbreak is satisfactory. I believe that the apple is more hardy in this kind of soil than it is generally considered to be. If the apple tree is properly limbed so as to shade its trunk and larger limbs it is a real success."

HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY PERIODICALS.--February, 1894, the first number of the monthly issued by this society was published and sent out to its members. Publishing the report in this way as a monthly was an experiment, which has proved to be a very successful one indeed, and this method of publication has now for a long time been a permanent feature of the work of this society. In 1894 the society had about six hundred members. The increase in the membership of the association since that period has brought the roll to high water mark this year at 3,700. At that time as far as we know no other horticultural society was publishing its report as a monthly. Quite a number of state societies are now doing something of this sort, though not exactly following the same plan as the Minnesota society, our report appearing as a monthly magazine and being bound up later with list of members, index, etc., making altogether the annual report. The only association that has exactly followed our plan is the Manitoba Society. Wisconsin, Kansas, Nebraska, Virginia and other associations not now recalled are sending out a monthly to their membership. Illinois and perhaps some others are publishing a quarterly. Some of the state boards of horticulture are publishing a monthly, notably the California board, and in some cases the state boards of agriculture are doing this also. The plan inaugurated by this society is being slowly popularized and will undoubtedly continue to be made use of more and more as the study and practice of horticulture develops in our country.

GARDEN HELPS

Conducted by Minnesota Garden Flower Society

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

GARDEN HELPS FOR SEPTEMBER.

_September Meeting of the Garden Flower Society_ will be held on the twenty-first, at 2:30 p.m., at the Minneapolis Public Library.

_Topics_, "Fall Work in the Garden."

"Planting for Fall and Winter Effects."

"Vines and Their Uses."

Have you taken any photographs of your garden, its individual flowers, or wild flowers for our photographic contest? It is not too late yet to get good pictures. Every member is urged to enter this competition.

_Plant peonies this month._ Old clumps of hardy perennials may be divided and reset early this month. Flowering bulbs intended to be in bloom at Christmas should be potted now. Grass seed for new lawns or bad places in old ones can be sown this month.

The daffodil makes an early growth and should be planted this month. After the first killing frosts the tender roots, like cannas, gladioli, elephant's ears, and dahlias, can be lifted with a fork and spread out under cover to dry, then stored in a cool cellar, free from frost.

Do not cultivate the soil after September first.

All newly set plants should be mulched lightly.

All litter about the garden can be cleared away. Any plants that have been infested with insects or diseased should be burned. Leave no harbors for the eggs of insects, such as old weeds, grasses or litter of any kind.

Seeds of native plants which you wish to naturalize should be gathered and sowed immediately in a shaded, well drained location, where the soil has some humus.

Lily-of-the-valley should be planted this month.

Try planting a few sweet peas late in September or early October.

Important September blooming flowers are phlox, Japanese anemones; perennial asters, or Michaelmas daisy, so-called because they are supposed to be at their best on Michaelmas Day, September 29th; helleniums, helianthus, hardy chrysanthemum, pyrethrum uliginosum, boltonia.

If you have not these flowers, try and visit some garden where they are blooming in order to know what kinds to grow.

Poppies for next June's blooming can be sown this month.

Be prepared for the first early frosts, having ready to use some light covering, such as cheesecloth. The garden can be prolonged from two to six weeks by this slight protection.

ORCHARD NOTES.

Conducted monthly by R. S. MACKINTOSH, Horticulturalist, Extension Division, University Farm, St. Paul.

A CONFERENCE OF HORTICULTURAL EXTENSION WORKERS.

A conference of the Horticultural Extension leaders of Wisconsin, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, Iowa and Minnesota was held early in August at the Iowa State College, at Ames. The subject of apple and potato clearing houses was the chief question discussed. The work of this kind was started by Professor Greene in Kansas when they had the big apple crop in 1913. Later Iowa and Minnesota undertook similar work. It is expected that a co-operative plan will be formulated which will be of greater value than when each state works alone.

The visiting members were very glad to have President Pearson discuss co-operation as he saw it while visiting a dozen or more countries in Europe.

One hour was spent in an automobile tour of the grounds and farms. Considerable land from one to three miles from the main campus is now used for experimental work. One of the latest additions to the horticultural equipment is a cold storage plant and range of greenhouses, costing over sixty thousand dollars.

HORTICULTURAL TOUR IN WESTERN IOWA AND EASTERN NEBRASKA.

The horticultural societies of Iowa and Nebraska joined in an automobile tour of the orchards, vineyards, nurseries, and truck farms August 2 to 4. The first day was spent in and around Council Bluffs. Interest centered around the large Co-operative Grape Growers' Association. A grand picnic dinner was served by the ladies. This association has been in active operation for fifteen years. Professor Beach emphasized the value of the work that is being done, and especially the value of having a contented lot of people in a community mutually interested in one kind of work. On the return trip a stop was made at the experimental apple orchard that is conducted by the Horticultural Department of the Iowa State College. This orchard of 900 trees was leased in 1910 for ten years to determine if an old orchard that has been unprofitable could be made profitable. Careful records have been kept of expenses and of the size and grade of all fruits produced under the several soil treatments. To date six crops have been harvested from the 475 trees under experiment. The lowest was 1,700 bushels in 1911 and the largest was 6,000 bushels in 1915. It is estimated that there is about thirty per cent. of a crop on the trees this year. Demonstrations were given in spraying, dynamiting trees, treating trees affected with blister canker, and grading apples with a large grading machine.

The second day was spent in orchards near Omaha. Some excellent orchards that have been very profitable were visited. It had been very dry in that region, consequently the fruit was undersized.

The third day was spent in southwestern Iowa, from Hamburg to Glenwood. It is impossible to tell about all the good things seen on this trip. We saw all kinds of pruning, cultivated and "sod cultivated" orchards and, above all, corn, corn and more corn. At Shenandoah the nurserymen and seedsmen took charge of the party and entertained all in a very hospitable manner. There were ninety at the noon banquet. In the afternoon they showed us the large nurseries and seed warehouse.

Toward the end of the trip we stopped at a 40-acre orchard, mostly Grimes Golden. A hailstorm had injured the fruit very much.

One of the great lessons gained from the 150-mile automobile tour was the fact that _spraying_ is _one_ of the _most important orchard operations_. It was interesting to hear what some of the older orchardists would say when they saw fruit injured by scab. It is an important matter with them, because it means dollars to have disease-free fruit to market.

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 OCTOBER, 1916 No. 10

Camping on the Yellowstone Trail.

CLARENCE WEDGE, NURSERYMAN, ALBERT LEA, MINN.

I suppose that civilization is the correct thing for mortals to aspire to. As a boy, while I hated it with a bitter hatred, I accepted it as inevitable because my elders approved it and because it seemed indissolubly linked to the school, the church and the things of good repute. As I grow older the yoke sits easier on my shoulders, but doubts have increased as to its necessary connection with the good, the true and the beautiful. It surely kills the sweet virtue of hospitality. In my home church lately there was a call for volunteers to entertain a visiting delegation, and I was interested in observing how perfectly the number that might be accommodated in any home was in inverse ratio to the size and furnishings of the house. High heeled shoes and hobble skirts, two-story starched collars and tile hats are fashion signs of civilization, but I cannot see why a ring in the nose and a tattooed arm might not have answered just as well. I am getting harder to convince that a broad foot, shaped on the lines laid down by the Creator, is less beautiful or desirable than the one-toe pointed shoe, decreed just now by our particular brand of culture, and today I would as lief defend the cult of the simple red man as the savagery that disgraces the lands across the water.

Whatever the merits of the matter, for one month of the year we and our tent and automobile abandon ourselves to barbarism, and live as we please. This year we chose to spend our month on the Yellowstone Trail, the road that leads from the Twin Cities to the Yellowstone National Park, and which is different from other roads leading in the same direction mainly by its yellow mark, faithfully directing the traveler on his way and preventing the loss of time in getting directions at doubtful cross roads. Our party consisted of a young botanist, and his wife, my wife, myself and our small boy Alan. Our equipment consisted of a tent, 7x7 ft., weighing, stakes, poles, partition and all, 16-1/2 lbs.; a trunk on the running board made to hold bedding and grub box, and an oil cloth to use as a tent floor. Like the Indians we go light, and live the simple life while on the trail. We get off at six o'clock in the morning, eating our breakfast on the move as we get hungry; lunch at noon by the roadside, and camp early, seeking the most interesting spot, from the top of a butte to a pleasant river valley--and cooking the one square meal of the day by such a brushwood fire as we are able to gather.

For the first few days we try to provide some straw to temper the hard earth, but as the days go by, and we get used to roughing it, we sleep soundly with nothing but a blanket and oil cloth between us and mother earth. We pin back the tent door, and with the night wind fanning our faces, close our eyes to the stars and flickering campfire. Some who have never camped are afraid of bugs, snakes and wild animals. We have spent our vacation month this way for twenty-five years, have camped in most of the counties of Minnesota, and in Iowa, the Dakotas and Montana, and have never had but one unpleasant experience of the kind. That was one night when we pitched our tent after dark on the bottoms below Fort Snelling, and did not know till we had laid ourselves down that a colony of ants had pre-empted the spot before us. We did not get much sleep, but we had the comfort of feeling that they were nice, clean, self-respecting, self-defending ants. Would that our experience in hotels had been equally fortunate!

Leaving the western boundary of the forests of Minnesota near Glencoe and going across the prairie and plains to the mountain forests of Montana is an interesting experience. The only trees in Western Minnesota and the Dakotas are those found along the lakes and water courses, and west of the Missouri the trees and shrubby growth, even in such places, becomes very scanty or entirely disappears, giving a weird appearance to one who has always associated water and trees together in his mind. As we draw near the Montana line, trees begin to appear on the tops of the buttes and high bluffs on the distant horizon. Traveling on the railroad I have wondered what they were. With our own private car we satisfied our curiosity by zig-zagging our way up to a camping place among them, the first night they came in sight. Of course they were our old friends, the Ponderosa pine, whose name will always be associated with our grand old man from Nebraska. They ought to be renamed the Harrison pine. How they endure the drouth and cold in a soil so poor that grass withers and dies out, and how they stand erect where every other living thing bows to the bleak winds and blizzards of the prairies, is one of the mysteries of plant life. What a splendid bonfire we made of their boughs that night, flaring as a beacon out over the ocean of prairie about us!

The day before we had passed by hundreds of clumps of a beautiful blue lupine with finely cut foliage and profusion of color that rivaled any flower of its shade I have seen in cultivation. On the way home we gathered a handful of seed from which we shall hope to grow some plants at home. We tried to dig a few to transplant, but their roots seemed to go down, down, till with my short handled shovel, I got discouraged. The herbage of the plains has learned to dig deep for water.

Leaving the Yellowstone at Big Timber and striking across the plains to the Snowy Mountains, we found the Ponderosa pine, and soon the Flexilis pine, wherever a rocky ridge is lifted above the level of the plains, so that these trees were in sight a large share of the time, even far away from large rivers and groups of mountains. If a homestead anywhere in that state is not cozily protected by bright colored evergreens it is not because there is any difficulty in getting trees that will thrive in that soil.

The Snowy Mountains are in the center of Montana, quite unsheltered from the other ranges of the Rockies. It is the meeting place of the flora of the mountains and the plains. I think it is the eastern limit of that peerless tree of the Rockies, the Douglas fir. I gave my impressions of this tree to the society a year or two ago. I am still more in love with it from what I again saw last August in its native Snowy Mountains, and from the bright, sturdy little trees that have been growing at my home in Minnesota for two years past, giving assurance of their willingness to be transplanted to our moister air. It is the coming evergreen for the prairies, and it will be a happy day for all who plant an evergreen west of the natural timber when the Douglas fir has displaced the trees that come from the cool, moist forests of Europe and the sheltered woods of our own lake regions.

I think the Snowys are also about the eastern limit of the little broad-leaved evergreen called the Oregon grape, that I believe every one in Minnesota can grow for Christmas greens. From my first acquaintance with it I got the impression that it required shade, but this time I noted that it was growing all over the bare ridges that radiate from the mountains, wherever it was possible for a little snow to lodge. We can substitute a light sprinkling of straw when snow is lacking. It certainly does not require shade.

The Mariposa lily is a unique flower that springs up in open places and produces a white blossom about the size and shape of the wild morning glory. It grows about a foot high and produces one or two flowers on each stalk. It must have a long period of bloom for ripe seed pods, and blooming plants were common at the same time in August.

The Canadian buffalo berry and a dwarfish birch are two mountain plants of no small ornamental value for the plains. They may not endure the moister air near the Mississippi, but there we have already many useful natives, like the black haw and thorn apple, that are as yet almost unnoticed.

One of the principal charms about the great country traversed by the Yellowstone Trail is its newness and freshness. Millions of acres just as the Indian, the buffalo and the coyote left them--broad stretches as far as eye can reach without a sign of human habitation. But this is fast passing away. Out among the sage brush in land as poor and desert-like as could well be imagined, homes are being mapped out by the thousand, and crops of grain were grown this year that rival the best yield in any of the older states. The time is close at hand when the main highways will be built up and made so hard and smooth that two hundred and fifty miles will be made as easily as our average runs of one hundred and fifty. The way will be safer and speedier, but it will lack some of the spice of adventure, and it will be harder to realize the simple life about the camp fire that now seems to harmonize so well with the wildness of the plains.

The Minnesota Orchard.

A QUESTION AND ANSWER EXERCISE LED BY J. P. ANDREWS, NURSERYMAN, FARIBAULT.

Mr. Andrews: This is a very important subject. We have been talking about it a long, long time, and we have advanced a little, ought to have advanced quite a little more, and this exercise is along the road of improvement in that line. Anything that is bothering us, anything that is in the way of our success with the apple orchard, ask what questions you can, not that I can answer them all, but there are some good orchardists around here that I know I can call on, in case I can not. In this exercise the questions come first, and it is for you fellows to start the ball rolling.

There is one thing we are lacking, that is winter apples. We have enough of fall apples, seems to me, so we can get along very well, but we are looking for something a little better quality than Malinda and that will keep somewhere near as long. All these new seedlings that have been introduced in the past and big premiums offered, they seem to have stopped right there and we are not getting the benefit of but one or two. If they had been adapted to the north, as they should have been, we undoubtedly could have had several good varieties of apples that we could recommend for planting a considerable ways north of here that are good. As it is now we are really looking in this southern part of the country for keeping apples.

I should think if we could get these new varieties of seedlings that are keeping well introduced into the Fruit-Breeding Farm and let Supt. Haralson handle them under number and send them off to the north of us a good ways, we could have them tested. Those that have exhibited these new seedlings and got premiums for them, they ought to be a little more free to get them in some shape so that they will be tested and we will learn their worth. They have their premiums, they got those simply because they are good keepers. Well, now, that isn't anything in their favor for Minnesota planting, not very much. Of course, good keepers, that is a good thing, good quality is another thing, but the first thing is hardiness, and the people who have been drawing these premiums have been seemingly backward in getting them in shape to test. They are afraid to put them out for fear somebody might steal them, but if Mr. Haralson had the handling of them under number nobody could steal them. You have got title to them and control them just as well as when you keep them right on your place where they haven't a chance to show whether they are hardy or not. There is the weak point in this seedling business for Minnesota, I think.

But the apple orchards of Minnesota, if you are not all getting the good results that you want from your orchards, if you are not all getting a full crop, what is the reason? The last year and this year we have failed of getting a good crop of apples or almost any crop, whereas before, ever since the old orchard was planted in 1878, why, we have regarded the apple crop as really a very much surer crop than almost any of the farm crops, but the last two years we have failed to get a crop.

I attribute the poor crop a year ago to such an excessive crop as we had the year before that. Two years ago everything was loaded, breaking down, because we didn't thin them as we ought to, and we could hardly expect very much the next year. This last year, you know we had frosts quite frequent up to about the 10th of June, I think that was the reason we had such a failure this year. Our own orchard is on ground that is about 225 feet above Faribault, so we have got air drainage, and we would expect to escape frosts on that account and have as good a crop as anybody else would in that neighborhood. But that wasn't the case. We didn't get any apples, and yet during county fair why there was quite a nice show of nice fruit that they had picked up a few here and a few there, where really their location seems to me could not have been any better than ours. I don't know what the reason was, but it was very patchy, and I didn't dream we would have such a good show of fruit as we did, and I couldn't tell where it came from.

Mr. Philips: I think when the trees are loaded so heavily, if you would pick off a third of them you would get more out of the balance of the crop.

Mr. Andrews: Yes, I think that. The question is, if we pick off a third of a heavy crop, if we have a heavy crop, if that wouldn't help the next crop. It surely would.

Mr. Philips: Help that crop, too, in the price.

Mr. Andrews: Yes, sir, it will pay that year besides paying the next year, too; it will pay double.

Mr. Philips: It is a good plan any year.

Mr. Andrews: Yes, we ought to do that, we are lacking in that work of thinning the fruit. We sometimes have a late frost that will take off part of them, thin them that way, or wind, or something of that kind, and we rather depend on that feature of it. Then in that time of the year we are very busy and liable to have some things neglected, and that seems to be the one that is almost always neglected.

Mr. Brackett: Would you advocate the extensive planting of apples in this climate?

Mr. Andrews: I would not. At the same time you take it in the southern part of the state I presume they can grow them there. They can grow there many things we can't think of growing in this part of the state unless it be along Lake Minnetonka.

Mr. Older: Where you have an orchard ten years old, is it best to seed it down or still continue to cultivate it? In the west they have to cultivate. What is the best in this country? I know one man says it is best to keep on cultivating while it is growing, and another man says that that will kill the trees. I want to know which is the best.

Mr. Andrews: I think cultivation is the thing that ought to be done until the trees get well to bearing, anyway, and then it furnishes nitrogen to the soil to seed it down to clover. If we don't do that we are very liable to neglect that element in the soil. The better way to my mind is to cultivate for eight or ten years, and then I do think it is all right perhaps, for farmers, I mean, who will neglect the cultivation if they depend on it. That is, if they make up their minds it is better to cultivate than it is to seed down, their trees are more apt to be neglected. During the busy part of the season they won't cultivate as constantly as they ought to. If they would do that I have not much doubt but what cultivation would be all right right along, if you will furnish that nitrogen that ought to be in the soil for the protection of the crop. Clover is the easiest way to get that, and the trees will be more sure to have the benefit of that if you sow to clover and grow a crop of hay and turn it under, possibly let it be into clover two years, but turn that under and cultivate for two or three years and then put into clover again. I think that would be preferable for the farmer, for the farmer especially, than it would to undertake to either cultivate all the time or seed down all the time.

I don't believe it is a good thing to seed down where there are young trees growing and while the orchard is young. If you will plant your potatoes in that orchard between the rows and cultivate it, you will do the cultivating. I haven't got very much faith in the average farmer--I don't mean you horticulturists--but the average farmer. If he will plant trees and you advise him to cultivate them while they are young, they will be neglected after the first year or so. He may while the fever is on, he may cultivate them one year and the next year about half cultivate them, and the following years they will grow up to grass and weeds. Whereas, if he plants potatoes he gets just the right cultivation for the trees if he cultivates the ground enough to get a good crop of potatoes. Then in the fall when he digs the potatoes he loosens up the ground, and it takes up the moisture, and after the fall rains they go into winter quarters in good shape. It seems to me that is as near right as I could recommend.

Mr. Hansen: What distance apart ought those apple trees to be?

Mr. Older: Another question along that line. Suppose we concede that a young orchard ought to be cultivated until it gets eight or ten years old, then which is the best when you seed it to clover to cut the clover and throw the hay around the trees for a mulch or just take the hay away, or what?

Mr. Andrews: I think it would be better to put the hay around the trees for mulching. If the hay is used and the barnyard manure is taken to the orchard that would fill the bill pretty well.

Now, the distance apart? Grown trees really need about thirty feet apart each way. If you run the rows north and south and put them thirty feet apart, and sixteen feet or a rod apart in the row, with a view to taking out every other tree, you might have to go under bonds to take them out when they are needed to come out (laughter), or else you would leave them there until you hurt your other trees. If you would take out every other tree when they get to interfering after several years, eight or ten years, you can grow a double crop of apples in your orchard, but if you do the way you probably will do, leave them right there until they get too close, you will--

Mr. Hansen: Spoil all of them?

Mr. Andrews: Yes. Then you better put them out a little farther apart, and, as I said, two rods apart each way I don't believe is too far. Our old orchard that we put out in 1877 is just on its last legs now. At that time, you know, we didn't know anything about what varieties to plant, we didn't have as many as we have now. The old orchard only had the Duchess and Wealthy for standards, and half of the orchard was into crabs, because I thought at that time crabs was the only thing that would be any ways sure of staying by us. Well, those trees are about through their usefulness now, the standards. They have borne well until the last two years, generally loaded, and they were put out at that time fourteen feet apart each way, breaking joints so that they didn't come directly opposite. And when they got to be twelve or fifteen years old, it was difficult to get through there with a team or with any satisfaction, it was rubbing the limbs too much. Then the next orchard we put out on the farm was twenty-four feet by fifteen or sixteen feet in the row, the rows twenty-four feet apart. I wish they were a little farther apart, although that hasn't bothered very much about getting through between the rows, but it shows that a tree that is any ways spreading in its habit really needs about two rods each way. Are there any other questions?

Mr. Brackett: Do you think a Wealthy orchard under thorough cultivation, making a rank growth, do you think it is as hardy as an orchard seeded down, and do you think that a Wealthy orchard would blight more than other kinds?

Mr. Andrews: If the ground is rich and under thorough cultivation it does tend to cause fire blight. I haven't followed it on anything but young orchards. When they have commenced to bear then we have generally seeded down and turned in the hogs, and we have rather neglected the cultivation after that. I do think that if we had cultivated a little more often it would have been better.

Mr. Older: What do you consider the best to seed down with, clover or alfalfa?

Mr. Andrews: I have never tried alfalfa. I don't see why it wouldn't be all right, if you don't try to keep it too long. It would furnish the nitrogen all right.

Mr. Older: Which kind of seeding down would you prefer, what kind of clover? Would you want the Alsike clover or sweet clover for an apple orchard?

Mr. Andrews: I haven't tried anything but the medium clover. The sweet clover I think would be rather a rank grower.

Mr. Older: If you are going to mow it, why not mow the sweet clover same as the other?

Mr. Andrews: That would be all right. If you were going to use it for mulching, I think it would be the thing, because it would be better for mulching than for feeding.

Mr. Ludlow: I would like to give a little experience in putting in alfalfa in an orchard. We got the seed, the Grimm alfalfa, I think, is the name of it, and I got a good stand. We got seed from it the first year, and I sowed more, but there seemed to be something about the alfalfa that would draw the pocket-gophers from two miles around. The second year I think I had nineteen of my thriftiest apple tree roots all eaten off. I didn't know there was one in the field because there were no mounds at all. In the spring I found where they were at work, and I catch on an average of twenty pocket-gophers out of that mound every year. Talk about cultivating, the pocket-gophers will cultivate it, and the alfalfa is pretty much all eaten out and it has come into bluegrass.

Mr. Harrison: That question as to alfalfa; the experience is always that the roots go too deep so it hurts the apple trees. Red clover seems to be the clover that is favored by most people.

Mr. Andrews: Mr. Ludlow spoke of the pocket-gopher favoring alfalfa. We have a patch of alfalfa right near the apple trees. I don't remember that I have noticed any pocket-gophers work in that piece at all. On the opposite side of the road, where it is clover and timothy, why, they work there tremendously. I know Brother Ludlow was telling us a little while ago at dinner about pocket-gophers working on his place, and I wouldn't wonder if he is blessed with an extra colony of them there.

Mr. Ludlow: I try to catch them all out every year. I catch out on an average about eighteen to twenty every fall, so as to catch them before they increase early in the spring. It seems as though they came from a distance. I know one came into my garden this year. I didn't know there was a gopher within a mile, and in one night he made four mounds in the middle of my strawberry bed.

Mrs. Glenzke: Did you ever try poisoning them?

Mr. Ludlow: No, I never did. I am most successful in catching them in a trap.

Mr. Brackett: Have you got any pocket-gophers that do not make mounds? Do you understand that?

Mr. Ludlow: No, sir, I don't understand that, but when they came in and killed the nineteen trees in the fall I hadn't seen a mound there. In the spring I found where they were at work, and then I went after them.

City "Foresters" and Municipal Forests.

PROF. E. G. CHENEY, UNIVERSITY FARM, ST. PAUL.

Several cities in the state have appointed "city foresters." This is a step in the right direction, if it is a precursor to the establishment of municipal forests for these men to manage; otherwise it is a misnomer and can only be misleading to the people. The city governments, in an endeavor to create a complete park organization, have so far adopted this title from European practice without much regard to the duties of the officer. A forester handles trees in mass formations,--sometimes for timber production, sometimes for the protection of water-sheds, sometimes for aesthetic effect or park purposes,--but always in the mass.

The handling of shade trees such as we have in our city streets is the work of an arborist. The planting of large ornamental trees, the pruning of the individual for formal effect, the filling of cavities and the bracing of weak parts, are no part of a forester's work; nor do they necessarily fall within his knowledge. An expert should undoubtedly be in charge of the work, but an expert arborist, not a forester. The title is, therefore, when combined with the present duties, unfortunate, because it gives the people--still struggling with a hazy conception of forestry--a wrong idea of the true character of the real forester's work.

Two very obvious ways of avoiding the difficulty present themselves,--either to change the title or to change the duties. The former would probably be much easier of accomplishment, but the latter is without question the course which the city ought to pursue. Since the cities have adopted the title of "city forester," and so obtained a more complete park organization on paper, why not make the improvement real by adopting the rest of the European practice and creating city forests for these new officers to handle? That would indeed be a real improvement, and one without which any city park system is lamentably lame.

Nearly every large city has some large park within in limits kept in a more or less natural condition as a recreation ground for its people, thus recognizing its influence for health and social betterment. How much it would increase this influence if there were a considerable tract of forest within easy reach of the city! How much better approach it would make to the city than the unsightly waste places so often encountered! How much better setting it would make for the suburban residence sections!

Such a municipal forest is not a Utopian dream, but a practical thing well within the reach of almost any city. The law passed by the last legislature makes it possible for a city to purchase land for such a purpose either within or without the city limits. The activities of the present park boards show that money can be obtained to carry out such plans. The establishment of the forests would be less expensive than is generally imagined. The amount of money expended on the Gateway Park in Minneapolis would buy hundreds of acres of city land within fifteen miles of the city. With the aid of a municipal nursery, such as every park system should have, this land could be planted up at a total expense, for stock and labor, of six to eight dollars per acre. The cost of maintenance would be limited to the patrol of the tract to prevent fire and trespass. Of course, there might be no money revenue from the forest for many years, but in a comparatively short time it would begin to fulfill its purpose as a park, and once the timber is mature, there would be a continuous net annual income of from five to ten dollars per acre. Suppose that the city had 10,000 acres of such forest paying a net annual revenue--in addition to its full services as a park--of from $50,000 to $100,000 toward the maintenance of the other city parks, and it must be remembered that for every dollar of net revenue the forest would pay an additional dollar or more in wages to swell the coffers of the city;--certainly that would be something very much better than anything that the city has at present.

St. Paul, with the bottom lands and cliffs on either side of the river between Hastings and Minneapolis, could make a beautiful and profitable park of what now threatens to develop into a monumental waste. Duluth could make a forest which would be unsurpassed in beauty and usefulness by any in the world out of the brushy, unoccupied, rock-bound hills as far west as Thompson. Mankato has a glorious chance for the same work along the Minnesota valley. Virginia and Hibbing could do nothing better than make such use of the rocky, mine-scarred hills in their vicinity.

And so opportunity might be cited for almost any city in the state. For the municipal forest need not be confined to the big cities. In fact, in some respects the smaller city has an advantage over the larger place. Suitable land can usually be obtained near the city at a much more reasonable price and the revenue obtained bear a much larger ratio to the total expenses of the town. There are some small towns in Germany where the entire running expenses are paid by the revenues of the town forest, and one or two where the forest not only pays all of the taxes but also pays a cash pension to a number of the older inhabitants.

Certainly our towns, looking forward to an endless and progressive existence, cannot afford to neglect this opportunity to develop a useful park, to provide a source of cheap wood and lumber for future generations and a substantial revenue for the city.

Expert advice need not be employed until the size and revenue of the forest warrants it, for the State Forest Service stands ready to help--by the selection of land, the formulation of plans, and consultation--any city that is wise enough to take advantage of this law.

The "city forester" can then be a forester indeed, and one of the good points of the European city government will have been adopted in fact as well as in name.

The Salome Apple.

H. W. HARRISON, ROCHESTER, MINN. SO. MINN. HORT. SOCIETY.

The Salome apple is named after one of the faithful Bible characters, Salome, who was associated with Martha and Mary while our Savior was on earth and was also a witness of his crucifixion. Thus the name alone commands respect. It was originated in eastern Canada, and it was introduced here some twenty-five years ago by the Princeton Nursery Company of Illinois and has proven to be very hardy on different soils and locations. It is grown in the southern tier of counties of Minnesota and as far north as New Ulm.

Like all good things it has had a hard fight to overcome its opponents. At the time it was introduced here there were Ben Davis and other tender varieties delivered in its place in certain localities. These not being hardy of course gave the Salome a black eye. Nevertheless it is an apple that should be grown extensively because of its hardiness, its clean appearance and upright growth, spreading just enough to admit air and light.

Its fruit will keep in ordinary cellars until May or June. It is medium in size and color, red streaked with green and yellow. Flesh is yellow and sub acid. Like all winter varieties it is slow to come in bearing but yielding heavily when it does bear, whenever other varieties do. Let us not lose sight of this excellent fruit in our desire to produce something new and original.

How May the State University and the Horticultural Society Best Co-Operate?

GEO. E. VINCENT, PRESIDENT MINN. STATE UNIVERSITY, MINNEAPOLIS.

Now, so far as I can understand, the only excuse for interpolating me in a program of this kind is that you are giving so much attention to technical subjects, you are working so hard, you need from time to time relief in order that you may not suffer from brain fever or any of the ailments of overstudy. I am confident from this point of view anything I may have to say will meet that need completely.

The relationship between this society and the university strikes me as typically American. There are two ways of doing things--leaving public undertakings entirely to private initiative, to individuals, to voluntary groups; that is one plan. There is another plan which consists in putting everything into the hands of the state. Constituted authority takes charge of the whole life of the citizen's, all the activities and enterprise are made public, state affairs.

Those are the two extremes. The dangers of those two methods are very obvious. Many enterprises left to private initiative will be done in haphazard fashion; there will be duplication and waste. When the state undertakes all these enterprises it changes the whole aspect. Public management may make for a certain efficiency, but it sooner or later undermines the initiative, the feeling of responsibility of the individual. We are a practical people, we compromise and combine the various methods of doing things. It is the typical American way to combine private initiative with a certain measure of state co-operation. The work for horticulture in the state of Minnesota has been developed under exactly these conditions.

If I remember rightly, this society was organized in 1867. It has assumed a definite leadership in the development of horticulture in the state of Minnesota; the university has gradually been adapting itself, so to speak, to the work of this society. The society and the university have officially been in close relationship. I believe that in the early days the secretary was at the same time a university officer and for the last twenty-five years, I am told that at least one expert of the university staff has always been a member of the executive board of this society. This has made a personal bond.

Then the society has done a great many important things. You have stood by at times when people were not perfectly certain about the importance of various kinds of scientific work. You have been steadfast. Sometimes it required courage to stand for the scientific ideals which the university was attempting to carry out in important work that had a bearing upon horticulture.

And you have, of course, the chief responsibility and distinction of having seen to it that our fruit-breeding farm should be established. I believe you were also kind enough to pick out the site, although none of you were personally interested in the particular real estate ultimately purchased.

So that we feel--we of the university feel--that the work of horticulture in this state is distinctly a co-operative undertaking, and that the leadership and enterprise and vision of this society have been the chief things that developed horticulture in Minnesota to the point it has reached. But we do believe that the co-operation of your university is an important and, we hope, from now on will be an increasingly important thing. Certain work is going on constantly at the University in the various departments, and that work is of distinct benefit because you recognize it.

We had a good illustration a few minutes ago. The professor of soils was having his brains picked, as he had a perfect right to have, by you. You were asking him questions, and I noticed once or twice he said he didn't know. That must have inspired confidence in him; I have a good deal of faith in people who don't know it all. That shows two things--they have a sense of humor, and they expect to find out. There is something pathetic in a person who knows it all; it is a case of arrested development.