crop plants will not form fruit and seed unless the flowers are properly
pollinated. The principal carriers of pollen are wind and insects. In
some plants, such as the beet, both wind and insects play an important
part in the spread of pollen. In all cereals and grasses, and in the
potato, the pollen is carried mainly by wind. In most of our common
plants of garden, field, and orchard, insects are the chief and most
effective carriers of pollen. The following is a list of
insect-pollinated plants: Onions, asparagus, buckwheat, gooseberry,
currant, cabbage, radish, turnip, raspberry, blackberry, strawberry,
apple, pear, plum, cherry, peach, alfalfa, clover, melons, cucumbers and
squashes. We are very dependent upon the bees and other insects for a
good crop yield.--W. W. Robbins, Colorado Agri. College.
Annual Report, 1915, Vice-President, Eighth Congressional District.
FRANK H. CUTTING, DULUTH.
This district embraces within its limits a very large area having
different characteristics from a horticultural standpoint. Much of the
land has a high elevation and is rolling or hilly, and much is low and
comparatively level. A considerable portion is close to Lake Superior
and other large bodies of water and, therefore, governed by conditions
with respect to frost different from those controlling land not so
situated. The quality or character of the soil is also varying.
The foregoing considerations probably furnish the reason for the widely
differing reports secured on the blanks distributed, and which were
quite generally answered. This prompts the suggestion that before
planting commercially or on a large scale one should personally conduct
a series of experiments on land designed for use to test its
adaptability for the fruits intended.
We suffered a frost and hard freeze on the 18th day of May which greatly
damaged the fruit buds; the temperature registered on that day at the
United States Weather Office being 27°. The month of June was the
coolest in forty-five years. The low temperature of the summer months
and lack of sunshine resulted in a tardy development of fall fruits and
a failure to mature them. Even the Beta grape and the Compass cherry did
not ripen their fruit. The Opata plum, however, bore a large crop of
ripe plums early in September.
Very little blight has been reported.
The weather report shows a deficiency of precipitation up to December 1
of 3.81 inches. However, the heavy rains in November immediately before
the ground froze supplied sufficient moisture to enable trees and shrubs
to stand the winter.
The following list is suggested by the reports:
Apples: Duchess, Okabena, Wealthy, Patten's Greening.
Crab Apples: Florence, Early Strawberry, Virginia.
Plums: Cheney, Aitkin, Compass, Opata.
Grape: Beta.
Cherries: Reports generally unfavorable.
Blackberries: No kinds reported favorably.
Raspberry: Minnetonka Ironclad, King, Cuthbert, Older.
Strawberries: Dunlap; Everbearing--Progressive and Superb.
Currants: Red Dutch, Perfection, Wilder, White Grape.
Gooseberries: Carrie, Houghton, Downing.
Hardy Perennial Flowers: Peonies, Phlox, Sweet William, Delphinium,
Canterbury Bells, Foxglove, Oriental Poppies, Iceland Poppies.
Hardy Shrubs: Snowball, Hydrangea, Lilac, Honeysuckle, High Bush
Cranberry.
Annual Report, 1915, Paynesville Trial Station.
FRANK BROWN, SUPT.
The summer of 1915 will long be remembered as the summer with no warm
weather. There was a heavy frost the morning of June 10th. The season's
rainfall was very heavy, but trees at the best made only a normal
growth, and with many varieties, especially of forest trees, the growth
was much less than the usual growth of even a dry season.
Some fruit trees blossomed quite early, and the young fruit formed
during a warm spell, and these trees were heavily loaded with fruit.
This was especially noticeable with Wealthy, Duchess, Okabena and
Whitney No. 20 apples, and with some of the Hansen hybrid plums. Other
trees, fully as good bearers, blossomed a few days later and set no
fruit at all, the frost killing the blossoms while not severe enough to
harm the fruit already set.
The cool weather of this past season has probably helped fruit growers
more than it has hindered them, for had it been as hot as it usually is
when we have such a tremendous rainfall, blight would most certainly
have caused much trouble, but as it was we have had practically no
blight at all.
This season has again demonstrated very plainly the advantages of
top-working, such trees making a better growth, and the fruit being more
even, and less troubled with spots, scab, etc.
The plums sent to this station the spring of 1913 bore no fruit at all
this season, but the trees made a fair growth and all appear healthy
except a few that froze back the winter of 1913-14.
The plum trees sent from the central station the spring of 1914 made a
very poor growth that season, owing undoubtedly to the fact that the
roots were dry when reaching here, but this last season all but one made
a splendid growth, and one No. 10, to my surprise, produced five plums
that for beauty and eating qualities would place this variety in the
front rank with the best in the state. We shall watch these trees with
great interest and will report on their actions as they develop.
The four trees of No. 1 plum, sent here the spring of 1915 from the
central station, made a splendid growth, each tree developing fruit buds
in abundance.
Of the seven varieties of raspberries sent here the spring of 1913,
three made good this last season. No. 2 bore a tremendous crop of very
large fruit, in quality the best; No. 4 bore heavily, an all around
good berry and apparently a good shipper; No. 7 produced a good crop,
not quite as large as No. 2, but continued in bearing for a long period.
Further testing will be necessary for these berries, but so far they
look good.
There is little to say about grapes, except the growth has been good,
and the amount of fruit buds started immense, but the frost and
unsuitable weather told the tale--we won't repeat it.
Of strawberries we will say this: If the central station did nothing in
five years except to produce the strawberry known as Minnesota No. 3,
they have still done well. It is hardy, a good shipper, it is delicious
with cream and sugar, a good canner, in fact a great big Senator Dunlap
with no green core, but ripens to the tip. It is also a good plant
producer.
The strawberry known as No. 1017, planted last spring, did well. It is a
wonderful plant producer, having a very heavy, dark green foliage, it
seems to be a good bearer of large, dark red berries.
With the wood on the fruit trees thoroughly ripened, and fruit buds in
good condition, we may look ahead to the future with courage, believing
that all things come to him that waits in Minnesota, providing he
hustles while he waits.
* * * * *
RED ROSE BEETLE IS EASILY KILLED.--Did you ever wait patiently
in the spring for your favorite Japanese rose to bloom and find when the
buds were ready to burst that it was scaly and spotted around punctures
made by the red rose beetle? Then did you vow once more to destroy the
beetles when you saw the roses begin to wither from punctures made by
the beetle in the stem?
The destruction of the red rose beetle is simple, according to a
circular recently issued by the Minnesota state entomologist, University
Farm, St. Paul. The method is to cultivate the ground around the rose
bush early this spring and cultivate it again in the late fall. This
will destroy many of the beetles, for they live in the soil in the
winter. Then a few of the pests can be hand-picked and destroyed.
If they are still too thick, they may be removed next fall for safety to
next year's blooms. The beetle lays its eggs in the hip of the rose.
These can be seen after the rose is in full bloom as a black spot,
covered over with no noticeable depression. The growing pests leave the
old blossom by the middle of September and go into the soil until next
spring.
The bush should be examined in the latter part of August for any flower
hips containing insect larvae and all found should be plucked and
burned. A few hours' work will insure a beautifully blooming bush next
year.
Annual Report, 1915, Jeffers Trial Station.
DEWAIN COOK, SUPT.
The 1915 apple crop at this station was a complete failure, owing to the
freezes of late May and early June. This apple failure, so far as I have
been able to ascertain, was prevalent over the entire county of
Cottonwood, although we could hear of plenty of apples being grown only
a short distance over the county line in all directions excepting to the
west of us.
[Illustration: A windbreak at Dewain Cook's, mostly white willow.]
The season has been one of cool weather and much rainfall, so much so
that although we had no killing frosts this fall until October 5th, yet
no corn or melons ripened in this vicinity. We quit spraying our fruit
trees when the freeze came last spring and destroyed the apple crop, and
the result has been that there was much scab on the foliage of many
varieties of our apple trees. The Antonovka and the Hibernal seem to be
about the healthiest in this respect. As to the fire blight there has
been absolutely none at this station the season just passed.
As for plums we got a few bushels in the final roundup, De Sotos, Wolfs
and Wyants mostly. Of the Japanese hybrids, we got a few specimens of
the B.A.Q. The Emerald bore freely, but the fruit mostly either was
destroyed by the brown rot or cracked badly just as they were getting
ripe. The Tokata, one of Hansen's hybrids, gave us specimens of very
fine fruit.
Of the apricot hybrids only the Hanska made any pretense of trying to
bear anything, but the curculio got away with about all of them.
When I made the midsummer report most of Hansen's sand cherry hybrids
were promising a good crop, but with the exception of the Enopa and
Kakeppa, from which we gathered a few quarts of fruits, we got nothing.
The brown rot, assisted by the curculio, took them all. It sure looks
as if we ever expect to make a general success with these sand cherry
hybrids and with the Japanese hybrids, we will have to be better
educated along the line of controlling this disease that is so very
destructive to the fruit of some varieties of plums, especially of those
varieties that have sand cherry or Japanese blood in them.
[Illustration: A veteran white spruce at Mr. Cook's place.]
[Illustration: Specimen Colorado blue spruce at Dewain Cook's.]
We have to report a grand success with everbearing strawberry No. 1017,
sent to this station from our State Fruit-Breeding Farm last spring. The
season all through was favorable for that class of fruit. We kept all
blossoms picked off till about the first of August, when we let
everything grow, and there is a great number of new plants. These new
plants, with a few exceptions, did not bear, but the old plants, the
ones set last spring, we gathered from them, from about September 15
till the first hard frost, October 5th, a liberal crop of surprisingly
fine fruit. The Americus, also an everbearing variety, treated exactly
as we did Minnesota 1017, bore a great number of plants and some fruit
in the fall. The berries were not so large as the 1017 nor so many of
them. While it is a perfect flowering variety, most of the late blossoms
blighted, which seems to be a weakness of this variety.
On November 5th our strawberry beds were all given a mulching with loose
oat straw for a winter protection.
The several varieties of grape vines originating at the Minnesota State
Farm on trial here have all made a vigorous growth. We have them all
pruned and laid on the ground, and we intend to give them no other
winter protection. They are in a sheltered location. In spite of the
various freezes early in the season we got samples of fruit from most of
the varieties. Minnesota No. 8 seems to be the earliest to ripen its
fruit. The wild grape flavor is noticeable in all these varieties.
The various varieties of plum trees sent here from the State Farm made
vigorous growth the past season and are looking healthy with the
exception of Minnesota No. 21. Of the five trees of this variety each
one has a great many galls on the body of the tree. It is probably what
is termed black knot, only the galls have not turned black yet. They are
apparently of too recent growth for that. It is probable that we will
plant other trees in their places next spring.
* * * * *
PAINTING OF SMALL TREE WOUNDS USELESS.--It has long been the
custom for horticulturists to recommend, and fruit growers to use,
dressings of various kinds on the wounds of trees when branches are
removed in pruning. A few years ago the New York Experiment Station
decided to conduct some experiments to determine whether such practice
was really of any value or not.
From results of this work, which have recently been published in
bulletin form, it is concluded that the use of white lead, white zinc,
yellow ochre, coal tar, shellac and avenarious carbolineum as coverings
for wounds under five inches in diameter is not only useless, but
usually detrimental to the tree. This is particularly true of peaches,
and perhaps of some other stone fruits, which, according to
recommendations, should never be treated at all.
The substances mentioned often injure the cambium layer to such an
extent that the healing of wounds is greatly retarded. Of the substances
experimented with, white lead proved to be the best and is recommended
wherever anything is used. But it is not thought worth while to use even
white lead for wounds two or three inches or less in diameter, though it
may be advisable to use it on wounds where very large branches have been
removed.
On the larger wounds, where much surface is exposed to decay, the white
lead will help to keep out moisture and the organisms which cause decay.
The smaller wounds, however, heal so quickly that the evil effects of
the covering may more than offset the benefits derived from its
use.--R.A. McGinty, Colorado Agricultural College, Fort Collins,
Colorado.
Annual Report, 1915, Montevideo Trial Station.
LYCURGUS R. MOYER, SUPT.
About twenty-six years ago a plantation of white spruce was made at this
station. The trees flourished for several years and bade fair to become
a permanent success, but some six or eight years ago they began to fail
and many of them have since died. The survivors are all in poor
condition. It seems that this tree is not well adapted to prairie
conditions, at least not to the prairies of Southwestern Minnesota. Its
native range is much further north. Here it evidently suffers from heat
and dryness. The Black Hills spruce is commonly regarded as belonging to
the same species. It has not been tested nearly so long, but so far it
seems to be entirely hardy.
Something like thirty years ago a few trees of black spruce, a few trees
of European larch and a few trees of balsam fir were planted here. They
have long since disappeared. White pine planted at about the same time
disappeared with them. A single tree of Scotch pine planted at about the
same time, standing in the open, is gnarled and crooked and shows a
great many dead branches. A forest plantation of several thousand Scotch
pine, made something like twenty-two years ago, is still in good
condition. Many of the trees are from twenty-five to thirty feet high.
Some of the smaller trees have been over-topped and smothered out, but
generally the trees seem healthy. A few hundred of the black, or
Austrian, pine were set at the same time. They are about two-thirds of
the height of the Scotch pine, but they are as healthy and vigorous
trees as one would care to see. Some trees of rock, or bull, pine (Pinus
scopulorum) were set at the same time. They have grown at about the same
rate as the black pine and are healthy, vigorous trees.
Norway spruce has done better here than white spruce, some old trees
fruiting freely. The Colorado blue spruce (Picea pungens) seems to be
our best spruce, and so far as tested the Black Hills spruce is a good
second. Douglas fir has been planted in a small way in the parks, but it
is young yet.
It seems probable that the Scotch pines in the forestry plantation owe
their comparatively good condition to the shelter they get from the hot
winds from being planted close together, and from the fact that they are
partly protected by the black pines planted to the west of them. The
single tree of Scotch pine above referred to has had garden cultivation
for thirty years, but it seems likely that it was injured by the same
hot winds that killed the white pine and the larch. The Scotch pine is a
native of Northern Europe, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Scotland, Normandy
(near the ocean) and Germany and Russia around the Baltic, and all these
countries have a moist, cool climate. The black pine is a native of
Southern Europe, growing all the way from Southern Spain to the Taurus
Mountains in Asia Minor. In its native habitat it has become accustomed
to the hot winds that often sweep across the Mediteranean, the burning
sirocco of the Great Sahara. The dwarf mountain pine, Pinus Montana,
grows in the Pyrenees, in the Alps, in the Carpathians and in the Balkan
Mountains, so that it, too, often encounters the hot winds that come
across from the African deserts. It is probable that the ability of the
black pine, the dwarf mountain pine, the Black Hills spruce, and the
rock pine to flourish on the prairies of Southwestern Minnesota is due
to the fact that all these trees have become accustomed to resisting the
hot, dry winds that often reach them in their native habitats.
The Norway spruce (Picea excelsa) in its many varieties is native to
almost the whole of Europe, extending from north of the Arctic Circle to
the Pyrenees and Balkan Mountains in Southern Europe. We could then
expect that trees from the Pyrenees or from the Balkans might be so well
accustomed to the hot winds from Africa as to make them resist, at least
for some time, the hot winds of the prairies. And they do seem to stand
better than the white spruce or the balsam fir or the white pine.
Some report should be made on the material sent out for trial from the
State Fruit-Breeding Farm. The strawberry, No. 1017, made a fine growth,
and promised a large crop of fruit in September, but a few days of quite
dry weather, following a very wet spell, ruined the crop at ripening
time.
The raspberry, No. 4, is a great producer of sprouts and multiplies
enormously, but it seems to be a rather shy fruiter, and the fruit is
not of the highest quality. It is intermediate in season. No. 5 is a
much larger and better berry, although not quite so hardy. Both came
through the winter, without covering, in good condition. No. 8 seems to
resemble the old Columbian. It does not sucker much. It is a large, late
berry of good quality. It was covered, so its hardiness is untested.
Prof. Hansen's Oheta is a berry of much promise. It is of fine quality
and fruits abundantly.
The hybrid plums were sprayed with a commercial dust spray but not
effectively enough, for the fruit all rotted. We shall try more thorough
spraying next season.
Patten's Greening, Oldenburg, Okabena and Simbrish No. 1 produced a good
crop of apples. With us Okabena is undersized, of poor flavor and an
extremely poor keeper.
The Growing of Vegetables for Canning.
M. H. HEGERLE, PRES. CANNING FACTORY, ST. BONIFACIUS.
The state authorities, through the Agricultural Farm and other sources,
are doing good work promoting and encouraging the growing of vegetables,
but it seems more could be done towards the marketing and conservation
of these vegetables after they are grown.
The growing season for vegetables in this state is comparatively short,
and although during that short period everybody eats vegetables, every
grocer's show windows, and even the sidewalks, are used to display them,
and a tremendous business is done, yet there are tons and tons of nice
fresh vegetables go to waste, not only for the market or truck farmer
but in every family garden--be the same ever so small, there is a steady
waste going on, all of which could easily be conserved _by canning_.
Canning is simply putting the fresh vegetables in tin cans or glass jars
(the latter are much more expensive, but no better), steaming and
sealing them and setting aside until wanted. By doing this every truck
farmer, and any one having ever so small a garden, could conserve enough
which otherwise would go to waste to keep them in real fresh vegetables
all winter.
Of course the thousands living in the cities having no garden can not do
this and are therefore dependent on the canning factory for their fresh
vegetables, and here is where my topic comes in, _the growing of
vegetables for canning_.
It is no trick to grow vegetables for home canning, any variety will do.
You need not select a big lot of one kind, and you need not sort for
size or color. Just take the surplus as you find it in your garden from
day to day. All it needs is, it must be fresh and it must be thoroughly
clean--but growing for the canning factory is different. To line up
fifty to 200 growers to sow the same seed, to plant, harvest and bring
to the factory just when in right condition, requires time and hard
work. This really is the hardest problem the canning factory has to
solve, and that is the reason why all successful canners grow at least
part of their product.
You must remember vegetables put in cans will come out just as you put
them in. If you put in stale, tough, stringy beans you will be sure to
find them there when you open the can, but if you put in fresh, tender
beans, peas, corn or whatever else, you will find these exactly as you
put them in, and it's immaterial whether you open this can the first,
second or tenth year. We must not forget that vegetables properly
sterilized and sealed will keep indefinitely, and they require no
preservative of any kind. No canning factory uses any preservative, and
no home cannery should use them.
[Illustration: Upland Farm, St. Bonifacius, Minn.]
There was a time when canning was considered an art or a secret. I
remember receiving circulars offering for sale the secrets of canning,
and while in the grocery business some twelve years ago I sold thousands
of packages of canning compound. These canning compounds, after a
thorough examination by our State Food Department, were found not only
worthless but harmful if put in canned foods.
_Remember_, to can vegetables successfully, it requires no canning
compound or preservative of any kind, simply fresh and thoroughly clean
vegetables.
Fresh vegetables are a good, healthy food, we all know this; and besides
they are cheaper than meat; therefore should be on our tables two or
three times a day. But mind you, they must be fresh, and while for some
of us during the growing season it is comparatively easy to get them
fresh, yet during the rest of the year, say eight to ten months, real
fresh vegetables in bulk are hard to find and high in price. A lot of
so-called fresh vegetables shipped in from a distance at best require
several days to make the rounds through the grower, the shipper, the
jobber, the retailer--to our tables and are really not fresh. They have
become stale, and by coming in contact with different kinds of material
have lost their delicate flavor. Therefore to insure real fresh
vegetables for our tables, at least during the winter months, we must
take the canned article.
All of us remember how most everything in the grocery line was handled
in bulk, dried fruits, cereals of all kinds, coffee, tea, etc., was
displayed on the counters, along the aisles and even outside along the
sidewalk, handled and examined by any one and exposed to dust and flies.
Just about the same way are vegetables in bulk handled today. Where is
the grocer who would go back to those days, and where is the public that
would patronize him?
Mrs. Glenzke: What vegetables do you can?
Mr. Hegerle: We can corn; beans, string and wax; apples, tomatoes, etc.
Mrs. Glenzke: How do you manage to get the farmers to bring them in? In
Wisconsin it was a failure. As you say, they came when they got their
work done, and the whole bunch came there at one time.
Mr. Hegerle: That is the hardest work, to get the growers to bring the
vegetables when they are in the right condition and when they should be
canned.