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.
* * * * *
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.
In the list of those who are still with us and have served with such
self devotion and courage in advancing the interests of the society, and
that for which it stands, are to be found the names of many men
prominent in various walks of life in our state. It would be out of
place for me to select from this list a few and give them special
prominence where hundreds have contributed to the life and growth of the
association all these many years until the present enviable place now
occupied by the association has been attained. To the executive board of
the society, most of whom have been members of the board for a long
period of years, of course the success of the association is especially
due. Men of initiative in an ambitious and unselfish way working for
the success of the association, they have had very much indeed to do
with its progress.
As I endeavor to recall the personality of those who have been of
special service to us I find the list almost without limit. With what
pleasure and satisfaction have I been permitted to serve with the
members of this society! What willingness to perform the duties
suggested has ever characterized the assistance that has been rendered
by the membership of this society! It has been an exceedingly rare thing
for any member to offer an objection to undertaking any service asked of
him, and with such support as this so readily and heartily given, and
often at large expense to the member, what can be expected other than
such success as has come to our society. I wish I had the ability to
express at this time the thought that is in my heart as I recall all of
these helpful brothers and sisters to whom indeed belongs as much as to
the writer any distinction that comes to the society as a result of
these years of labor.
Notwithstanding the State University have seen fit to refer to this in a
way to indicate that our society has reached some certain vantage
ground, it must not be lost sight of that the real work of the society
is still before it. Whether to be carried on under the present
management or under a changed management we have a right to look ahead
and anticipate the definite and widely expanding results that are still
to come from the services of the members of the society, which we are
sure in the future, as in the past, will be heartily rendered.
A. W. LATHAM, Secy.
June-Bearing Strawberries.
GEO. J. KELLOGG, RETIRED NURSERYMAN, JANESVILLE, WIS.
Any fool that knows enough can grow strawberries, which reminds me of
the preacher in York State who both preached and farmed it. He was
trying to bore a beetle head and could not hold it; a foolish boy came
along and said, "Why don't you put it in the hog trough?" "Well! Well!"
the preacher said. "You can learn something from most any fool." The boy
said, "That is just what father says when he hears you preach." I don't
expect to tell you much that is new, but I want to emphasize the good
things that others have said:
_Soils._ I once had twenty-one acres of heavy oak, hickory, crab apple
and hazel brush, with one old Indian corn field. I measured hazel brush
twelve feet high, and some of the ground was a perfect network of hazel
roots; the leaf mould had accumulated for ages. The first half acre I
planted to turnips, the next spring I started in to make my fortune. I
set out nineteen varieties of the best strawberries away back in the
time of the Wilson, than which we have never had its equal. The plants
grew well and wintered well, but they did not bear worth a cent, while
just over the fence I had a field on ground that had been worked twenty
years without manure that gave me two hundred and sixty bushels to the
acre. It took three years with other crops to reduce that loose soil
before I could make strawberries pay. My fortune all vanished.
Last June while judging your strawberry show, I found a large collection
of twenty-five kinds of the poorest strawberries I ever saw, grown on
the college grounds. I visited the field, found over a hundred
varieties, well tallied, well cultivated, on new oak opening soil. First
crop, the soil seemed ideal, every thing good except the plants and the
fruit. The foliage was defective and the fruit very poor. Was it the new
soil?
I have always found good garden soil would produce good strawberries;
the best beds were those that followed potatoes. Cut worms and white
grubs seldom follow two years of hoed crops.
[Illustration: Mr. Geo. J. Kellogg ten years ago]
_Preparation._ Preparation for the best strawberries should be started
three years before planting. Using soil from sand to clay, well drained,
well manured, sowed to clover, take off the first cutting of clover,
then more manure plowed under deep with the second crop of clover, as
late as can before freezing up, to kill insects and make the soil
friable and ready for a crop of potatoes the next spring. After
harvesting 300 bushels of potatoes to the acre use a heavy coat of well
rotted manure without weed seed, plowed under late in fall. The
following spring, as soon as the ground will work, thoroughly disk and
harrow, and harrow twice more. Then roll or plank it, mark both ways two
by four feet, set by hand either with dibble or spade, no machine work.
Crown even with the surface, with best of plants from new beds, leaving
on but two leaves, and if the roots are not fresh dug, trim them a
little. Firm them good.
Now start the weeder and go over the field every week till the runners
start, then use the nine-tooth cultivator with the two outside teeth two
inches shorter than the others. Cultivate every week till the middle of
October. Use the hoe to keep out all weeds and hoe very lightly about
the plants. Weeds are a blessing to the lazy man, but I don't like to
have it overdone. Don't let the soil bake after a rain. Keep the
cultivator running. In garden work a steel tooth rake is a splendid
garden tool.
Volume 1905, page 230 (An. Report Minn. State Hort. Society). Mr. Schwab
gets an ideal strawberry bed, then kills it with twelve inches of mulch.
If the ice and snow had not come perhaps the plants would have pulled
through. Volume 41, page 390. Mr. Wildhagen gives an ideal paper on
strawberries, it will pay you to read it again and again. Instead of one
year's preparation, I would have three.
_Winter Protection._ Unless in an exposed place, marsh hay is the best
and cleanest mulch, but high winds may roll it off. Clean straw away
from the tailings of the machine is next best. For small acreage if one
inch can be put on as soon as the ground is frozen a half inch, it will
save the many freezings and thawings before winter sets in. For large
acreage it is not practical to cover till frost will hold up a loaded
wagon. Two inches of mulch, that covers the plants and paths from sight
is enough, but I see you cover deeper, from four to twelve inches in
Minnesota, and often smother the plants. If we could have a snow blanket
come early and stay on late in spring, that would protect the plants,
but we want the mulch also to protect from drouth and keep the berries
clean. A January thaw is liable to kill out any field that is not
properly mulched.
A two inch mulch will not hinder the plants coming through in spring;
four inches will require part of the mulch raked into the paths; if
plants don't get through readily loosen the mulch. I have known some
successful growers to take off all the mulch from the paths in spring
and cultivate lightly but thoroughly, then replace the mulch to protect
from drouth and to keep the berries clean, but I don't think it pays.
_Weeds._ In the best fields and beds I ever saw there will come up an
occasional weed in spring, and it pays to go over the ground with a
spade or butcher knife and take out such weeds. We almost always get a
drouth at picking time, better a drought than too much rain. A good
straw mulch will usually carry us through.
_Irrigation._ If irrigation is attempted the fields must be prepared
before planting to run water through between the rows. Sprinkling will
not do except at sundown. Rain always comes in cloudy weather; you
cannot wet foliage in sun in hot weather without damage. A good rainfall
is one inch, which is a thousand barrels to the acre, so what can you do
with a sprinkling cart? Showers followed by bright sunshine damage the
patch.