Part 5
Having the orchard set out the next thing was to protect the trees from mice and rabbits. This we did by making protectors out of wire cloth, using different widths, from 18 to 24 inches, cutting it in strips 10 inches wide and holding it about the trees by three pieces of stove pipe wire at the top, middle and bottom. Not counting the time of making and putting them on these cost us from 1-1/2 cents to 2-1/2 cents each, and lasted from three to four years. We used a few made of galvanized wire cloth, which lasted much longer.
Three years ago we commenced replacing these protectors with a wash of white lead and raw linseed oil mixed to the consistency of separator cream. The first year we painted only fifty trees, the next year 100, the next 300, and this last year we painted every tree on the place. We can see no bad effects, and it certainly protects against mice and rabbits and, what is equally as important, against borers also, and the cost per tree, including labor, is much less.
We have also used the lead and oil with splendid results in treating trees affected with canker. We had quite a number of Wealthy so affected, and we cut out the affected bark and wood and then covered the wound with lead, and in almost every case it has proved a cure, that is, stopped the spread of the canker.
The second year our orchard was set out we began to mulch the trees with grass cut in the orchard, clover straw, pea straw--anything we could get. We were unable to mulch the entire orchard that year, and before we got the balance mulched you could tell as far as you could see the orchard which trees were mulched and which were not. The former not only made a better growth, but had a healthier look. Now I do not want you to get the idea that I am advocating the sod system except in locations similar to ours. Were our orchard on more level ground I not only should have cultivated the first three years, as advocated by most authorities, but would have continued the cultivation in some degree at least.
Nevertheless, on account probably of the very favorable location, I think our orchard will compare favorably with any cultivated orchard of the same age. Having the orchard set out, protected against mice and rabbits and mulched, we found that the real work of raising an orchard had just begun. First came the gray beetles the following June, and they ate the new growth off several hundred trees before we discovered them. At that time, not knowing what else to do, we hand picked every one we could find and destroyed them. These beetles we found came from oak groves on the south and west, and the next year we sprayed with arsenate of lead six or eight rows of trees on that side of the orchard, and as we have since then sprayed the entire orchard each year we have had no further trouble.
Next came pocket gophers, and before we learned how to stop them we had lost a number of trees by their chewing off the roots just beneath the surface of the ground. By opening their runways and placing well down in them a piece of carrot or potato in which has been placed a little strychnine we succeeded in getting rid of them entirely. Next came the woodchucks. They were very destructive with us, chewing the bark above the protectors as well as the roots. Trapping is the most successful method we have found, and by keeping a half dozen traps out all the time we held them in check. Eternal vigilance must be the motto of the successful orchardist.
In the year 1913 we picked our first crop of apples, that is, in sufficient quantity to be considered in a commercial way. Our Duchess we sold in barrels at $2.00 net. Wealthy we packed in bushel boxes, making two sizes, the larger, three inches and over, we called No. 1, and they sold for $1.25 per box net. The balance or smaller ones were also sold in boxes and brought us $1.00 per box net. Patten Greenings brought us 80 cents and Northwestern Greenings, 90 cents per box. Our neighbors, who sold to the local and transient buyers in bulk and in barrels, received 75 cents to 90 cents per hundred pounds, or $2.00 per barrel.
The past year we had only about 75 bushels of all kinds. With the exception of Duchess and possibly Patten's Greening we shall certainly sell our next crop in bushel boxes.
We are top-working about 50 Patten's Greening to Jonathan, Delicious, McIntosh Red and King David. As the work was only started a year ago last spring I cannot tell you of its success or failure. So far the best results seem to be with the Jonathan.
We also have about thirty varieties of plums, including many of Prof. Hansen's new hybrids. Of these the Opata seems to be the most hardy and prolific, but it is subject to brown rot, which, this past year was so bad that we lost more than half the fruit. We have it top-worked on several varieties of native plums, and it was similarly affected there also. This was the only variety in our orchard of 150 trees that was so affected. We have fifteen Surprise plums, set seven years, that have not yielded altogether a peck of plums. Only lack of time kept me from grubbing them out last spring. This past season they were so heavily loaded that we had to prop the limbs and then thin out the fruit.
We endeavor to spray all our trees twice with commercial lime-sulphur and arsenate of lead--the first time immediately after the blossoms fall, the second two weeks later. Our spraying outfit consists of a Morrill & Morley hand pump, fitted in a 100-gallon tank, which we mounted on a small, one-horse truck. We operate it with three men, one to drive and pump and one for each line of hose, spraying two rows of trees at once. With this outfit we can spray 400 to 500 trees (of the size of ours) a day.
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THE NATIONAL FORESTS--besides being the American farmer's most valuable source of wood, which is the chief building material for rural purposes, are also his most valuable source of water, both for irrigation and domestic use. In the West, they afford him a protected grazing range for his stock; they are the best insurance against flood damage to his fields, his buildings, his bridges, his roads, and the fertility of his soil. The national forests cover the higher portions of the Rocky Mountain ranges, the Cascades, the Pacific Coast ranges, and a large part of the forested coast and islands of Alaska; some of the hilly regions in Montana and in the Dakotas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas, and limited areas in Minnesota, Michigan, Florida, and Porto Rico. In addition, land is now being purchased for national forests in the White Mountains of New England and in the southern Appalachians. In regions so widely scattered, agricultural and forest conditions necessarily differ to a great degree, bringing about corresponding differences in the effect of the national forests on the agricultural interests of the various localities. Wherever agriculture can be practiced, however, the farmer is directly benefited by the existence of national forests and by their proper management.--U.S. Dept. of Agri.
GARDEN HELPS
Conducted by Minnesota Garden Flower Society
Edited by MRS. E. W. GOULD, 2644 Humboldt Avenue So. Minneapolis.
SOME SUGGESTIONS FOR THE USE OF COAL ASHES--
This is the time of the year when the unsightly heaps of coal ashes are likely to appear in one's back yard--eyesores and apparently useless.
Yet there are several ways in which they can be used to advantage about the garden.
They should first be sifted, using a quarter-inch wire mesh. The rough or coarser parts are well adapted for use on paths and driveways, forming a clean, firm surface with use. These paths are especially good in the garden, for weeds do not grow readily in them, and they dry off quickly after a rain.
Such parts of the ashes as will pass through an inch mesh will make a very good summer mulch about fruit trees and bushes that require such care. This mulch will conserve the moisture at the roots of the tree or plant at a time when it is very necessary to have it.
About a pyramid of these coarse ashes one may plant anything that requires much water. The roots of the plants will run under the ashes and keep moist and cool. Through a drought a little water poured upon the ashes will be distributed to the roots without loss.
The fine sifted ashes will render the tougher hard soils more friable, their chief virtue being lightening it. In a very mild degree they are a fertilizer, though in no degree comparable in this respect to hardwood ashes. Yet it has been proved that soil to which sifted coal ashes had been added grew plants of richer, darker foliage. They must be very well mixed with the soil by a thorough spading and forking.
The following experiment was noted in the Garden Magazine: A soil was prepared as follows: One-eighth stable manure, one-eighth leaf mold, one-quarter garden soil (heavy), one-half sifted coal ashes. Plants grown in this soil surpassed those grown in the garden soil next to them.
Coal ashes would not be advised for a light soil.
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Watch this page for announcement of Garden Flower Society meetings.
January 20th, Public Library, Minneapolis, Tenth and Hennepin, Directors' Room, 2:30 p.m.
SUBJECTS:
Hotbeds, coldframes, management and care of the young plants, Mr. Frank H. Gibbs.
The Minnesota Cypripediums. Can they be successfully cultivated? Miss Clara Leavitt.
Five-minute talks on "The Best Things of 1915."
Members are urged to bring their friends to this meeting. No one who contemplates having a garden this year can afford to miss it. Let us be generous and share our good programs with as many as possible. Each member is host or hostess for that day.
SECRETARY'S CORNER
ANNUAL MEETING WISCONSIN STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCY.--This meeting is to be held at Madison, Wis., on January 5-7. Mr. Chas. Haralson, superintendent of our State Fruit-Breeding Farm, is to represent this society at that meeting. We may look for an interesting report from him in the February issue of our monthly.
IS YOUR ANNUAL FEE PAID?--If not, won't you please send it in promptly, remitting by a $1.00 bill, which is a safe medium of payment, instead of using check unless you draw on a bank in one of the larger cities of the state. Checks on country banks, as a rule, can only be collected here by a payment of ten cents, which the society can ill afford to pay for so many members.
ANNUAL MEETING S.D. HORT. SOCY.--The annual gathering of this sister association will be held in Huron, S.D., January 18-20. Quite a good many of our members live so near the state line that they may find it convenient to attend this meeting, which will certainly be a profitable one. Prof. N. E. Hansen is secretary. Mr. Wm. Pfaender, Jr., of New Ulm, is to be the representative of this society at the South Dakota meeting.
ANNUAL MEETING SOUTHERN MINNESOTA HORT. SOCY.--This very wide-awake auxiliary of the state society will hold its annual meeting in Austin, January 19th and 20th next. The program of the meeting is not yet at hand, but you may be sure that it will be an interesting and practical one. If the reader is living anywhere within convenient range of Austin by all means attend this meeting and get inspiration and help for the work of another season.
YOU ARE NOT FORGOTTEN.--This refers to members of the society who have paid their annual fee for 1916 and are wondering why they have not yet received the membership ticket. There is always a little unavoidable delay in sending out these tickets after the annual meeting. First the tickets must be printed, and then the society folder that goes out with them must be prepared, and the material making up this folder comes from quite a number of sources, and it takes more or less time to get all of these matters together and in shape. You need not be solicitous in regard to membership fees remitted, as the chance of loss in transmission is approximately nothing; hardly half a dozen instances of the kind have come up in the twenty-five years of service of the secretary.
PASSING OF MICHAEL BENDEL, SR.--This old member of our society and resident of Madison has just been called away, December 23rd, at the age of seventy-nine years. While not an attendant at our meetings he was a most loyal member of the society, and especially conspicuous in the western part of the state, where he lived, as a successful experimenter in orcharding, in which work he had a large experience. His portrait and a brief sketch of his life appear in the 1914 volume of our report, on page 150. Mr. Bendel was for many years president of the Lac qui Parle County Agricultural Society, was always greatly interested in everything to improve the interests of his community, and especially those pertaining to farm life. He has left an enviable record.
FARMERS AND HOME MAKERS WEEK.--University Farm, midway between Minneapolis and St. Paul, have prepared a royal program for all interested in agricultural work and life, including the needs of the household, filling all of next week, from January 3rd to 8th, inclusive. Seventy-nine professors and instructors by count are on the program for the week, and it is so arranged that those attending pass from one lecture room to another, from hour to hour, selecting the subjects that they have a special interest in. Horticulture, or subjects closely akin, have a place on this program Monday afternoon, Tuesday forenoon and afternoon, Wednesday forenoon and Thursday forenoon; Thursday afternoon the horticultural program is devoted entirely to vegetables; Friday forenoon and afternoon; and Saturday forenoon altogether spraying. When this magazine is received it will be too late to send for a program, but not too late to attend the meetings, which we hope many of our members may have the opportunity to do.
ATTENDANCE AT ANNUAL MEETING.--The badge book, which is issued at every annual meeting, containing the list of those who notify the secretary of a purpose to attend the meeting, is a pretty good index of the attendance. This year the badge book contained 442 names. Of course not all of these were present at the meeting, but a great many who were there had not sent notice of attendance and whose names were not in the badge book, so that the figures given elsewhere in this magazine as to attendance, estimated at from 400 to 500, are certainly not any too high.
Of this number not to exceed fifteen members, including vice presidents and superintendents of trial stations living at a distance, receive their railroad fare to and from the annual meeting, which is the only compensation they receive for their work in operating the trial stations and preparing the annual or semi-annual reports connected with their positions. This is not in fact any compensation for service but rather a recognition of the large obligation under which the society rests towards them for such gratuitous service.
PLANT PREMIUMS FOR 1916.--On the inside front cover page of this monthly will be found a list of the plant premiums offered to our membership the coming spring. This list is also published in the society folder, of which copies will be sent to each member and which can be supplied in any number desired by application to the secretary. The list of plant premiums includes a considerable variety of plants both ornamental and otherwise useful. Those of special interest this year are the new fruits being sent out from the State Fruit-Breeding Farm, including No. 3 June-bearing strawberry, which gives promise of being a very valuable fruit for Minnesota planters; No. 1017 everbearing strawberry, the kind which has been selected from thousands of varieties fruiting at the station, a good plant maker and also a prolific fruiter of high quality berries; No. 4 raspberry, a variety of extraordinary vigor and hardiness, large fruited, and a prolific bearer; and several varieties of large fruited plums. Every member of the society with facilities for growing fruits should be interested in trying these new varieties, which of course are still being sent out on trial, and we desire to hear from our membership as to their measure of success with them.
[Illustration: A. W. LATHAM O. C. GREGG CHAS. G. PATTEN
From photograph taken in front of Administration Building, at University Farm, on the morning of January 8, just before presentation of certificates referred to on opposite page.]
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 FEBRUARY, 1916 No. 2
OPEN LETTER TO MEMBERS
OF THE
Minnesota State Horticultural Society
FROM ITS SECRETARY.
Probably members of the society very generally noticed a few weeks since in the daily papers of the Twin Cities and elsewhere an announcement that "certificates of award for special meritorious services in the advancement of agriculture" would be made by the Minnesota State University to Mr. O. C. Gregg, Hon. W. G. LeDuc, Mr. Chas. G. Patten and Mr. A. W. Latham.
These certificates were awarded Saturday, January 8th, 1916, at the closing exercises of the Farmers Week at the University Farm before an audience of twelve hundred people, gathered in the chapel in the Administration Building. Appropriate exercises were conducted by the President, Geo. E. Vincent, and the Dean of the University Farm, A.F. Woods, in the presence of Hon. Fred B. Snyder, President of the Board of Regents of the State University, and other members of the Board and a large representation of the professorship of University Farm School, also occupying the platform.
Dean Woods read a sketch of the life of each one of the recipients, and the certificates were formally presented to each in turn by the President of the State University. All the persons who were to receive this honor were in attendance except Gen. LeDuc, who was probably unable to be present on account of his extreme age.
When this matter was first called to my attention I felt that it would be entirely out of place, being its editor, that I should make reference to it in the society monthly, but as the fact has been widely published throughout the state, and whatever honor is connected with this presentation is to be shared with the members of the Horticultural Society, I have changed my view point in regard to this, and it seems to me now that the members of the society should be fully informed as to what has taken place.
Mr. O. C. Gregg received this distinction on account of his connection with the farmers' institutes of the state, of which he was the pioneer, and in connection with which he remained as superintendent for some twenty-two years.
Gen. LeDuc was for a number of years Commissioner of Agriculture at Washington and introduced many important reforms in the management of that department.
Mr. Chas. G. Patten is well known to our members of course as the originator of the Patten's Greening apple, although this is quite an infinitesimal part of the work that he has done in connection with the breeding of fruits, the results from which the public are to profit by largely, we believe, in the early future. At his advanced age of eighty-four we feel that this honor has been wisely placed.
"Mr. A. W. Latham has been secretary of the Minnesota State Horticultural Society for twenty-five years, during which period its membership has advanced from one or two hundred to thirty-four hundred, making it the largest horticultural society in the country, and probably," as stated by the Dean in his address, "the largest in the world."
While this distinction has been conferred upon the secretary of your society it is not to be considered as so much a personal tribute to him as a recognition of the splendid work done by the society as a whole, in which every member has had some share. To express fully my thought in this I will refer briefly to the organization of the society, just half a century ago, when a handful of earnest men united their efforts under the name of the Minnesota State Horticultural Society in an endeavor to solve the difficult problems connected with fruit growing in this region. None of the men who at that time organized this society are now living, but others have taken their places, and the important service that was so well cared for by the earlier membership is being equally as well prosecuted by those who have succeeded them.
My personal connection with the society began the third year of its existence, so that I had the high privilege of enjoying personal acquaintance with practically all those earlier workers in the society, and indeed most of them were still alive when I came into the secretaryship twenty-five years ago. It will not be out of place to speak here particularly of a few of those who are no longer with us: John S. Harris, that staunch friend, one of the original twelve, whose medallion hangs on the wall of the horticultural classroom at University Farm; Peter M. Gideon, whose self-sacrifice gave us the Wealthy apple, now of worldwide planting--he in whose memory the Gideon Memorial Fund was created; Col. John H. Stevens, that large hearted man of unquenchable public spirit; P.A. Jewell, searcher for new fruits and founder of the Jewell Nursery Company; Truman M. Smith, seven years president during many dark days; Wyman Elliot, one of the original twelve, well called by one "King of the Horticultural Society"--so recently taken from us. The institution of learning conferring this distinction upon us has contributed a full share of workers now no longer with us; W. W. Pendergast, first principal of the University Farm School, and for many years president of the society until stricken with a fatal illness; and Prof. Saml. B. Green of blessed memory, whose loss we shall never cease to mourn. There are many others who did great service to the society that I should be glad to speak of here if space would permit.