stalks are coming up. Shoots will suddenly wilt and fall. Examination
will show they have rotted at the base or just below the surface of the
ground. The rotted portion will soon become covered with a brown coat of
spores--much like felt. Generally it is the young stalks that are
affected, though sometimes stalks with buds just opening will suddenly
wilt and fall. It is thought the spores are carried through the winter
on the old stubble, after the tops have been cut off. They are in the
best position to give rise to a new crop of spores in the spring, and
the new shoots become infected as they appear.
"To eradicate this disease the old stubble should be carefully removed
in the fall or early spring by removing first the soil from the crown so
as not to injure the buds, and cutting off the old stalks. These should
be burned and the soil replaced with clean soil or preferably sand.
Whenever a shoot shows sign of the disease it should be cut off and
burned. The buds must also be watched and any that begin to turn brown
or black and die must also be cut off and burned, as spores will be
found upon them, and these will be spread by the wind and insects.
Spotted leaves should also be picked off. In wet seasons the peonies
should be closely watched. For the small garden, with comparatively few
clumps of peonies, this treatment will be entirely practical and
effective."
Bulbs should be ordered this month if you wish the pick of the new crop.
There are two fall blooming bulbs that would add to our September and
October gardens. One is the Sternbergia, or autumn daffodil, and the
other is the autumn crocus.
The bulbs should be planted in August and will blossom the same season.
The daffodil is a clear yellow and is good for cutting. These bulbs must
be ordered as early as possible.
Lady bugs are our garden friends, destroying multitudes of aphides. They
should never be killed.
Have you the following all ready for use?
For insects, bugs or worms that chew--or eat portions of
plants--arsenate of lead, paris green or hellebore.
For sucking insects, nicotine or kerosene emulsion.
For diseases, bordeaux mixture or ammoniacal copper carbonate solution.
A good sprayer.
* * * * *
_Remember_ our photographic contest.
BEE-KEEPER'S COLUMN
Conducted by FRANCIS JAGER, Professor of Apiculture, University
Farm, St. Paul.
INCREASING COLONIES (CONTINUED FROM JUNE NO.)
[Illustration: Prof. Francis Jager's apiary at St. Bonifacius.]
To increase you must first make your colonies strong. One or more of
your best colonies must be selected to raise queens for your increase
unless you wish to buy your queen. Stimulate your queen raising colonies
by feeding and not giving them any supers. The crowded condition will
bring on an early swarming impulse, under which they will raise from
twelve to twenty large, well developed queen cells each. The queens of
your queen raising colonies should be clipped. When in due time a queen
raising colony swarms, catch the queen and remove her and let the swarm
return. Immediately after this swarm you may proceed to divide your
other colonies from which you wish to increase. Put down on a permanent
location as many empty hives as you have available queen cells in your
colony that swarmed. Into one of these you put your removed breeding
queen with two frames of brood and bees. Into each of the rest of the
empty hives put two frames of brood with all adhering bees from your
colonies you wish to increase. Be sure to leave the queens in the old
hive after brood for increase with adhering bees has been removed. Thus
you have now a number of new colonies with bees and two frames of brood
but no queen. The rest of the hive may be filled with drawn comb or
sheets of foundation. To prevent the bees from returning to the old
home, stuff the entrance of the hive solidly with grass. In two days the
grass will wilt and dry and the bees will come out automatically and
stay in the new location--at least most of them. In the meantime being
queenless they will be busy with raising queen cells on the two frames
of brood. This occupation will make them contented, then on the seventh
day cut out every one of their queen cells and give them a cell from
your breeder colony. Your queen breeding colony on the seventh day after
swarming will have ripe queen cells ready to hatch, with one queen
probably out. If by listening in the evening you hear her "sing" and
"peep" go next morning and remove all queen cells and give one to each
of your newly formed colonies. They will be readily accepted, will hatch
immediately, sometimes whilst you are removing them, but certainly the
same or next day and begin laying in due time. From such colonies you
may not expect any surplus honey, but they will build up rapidly and
will be strong colonies to put away next fall.
[Illustration: ADMINISTRATION BUILDING (MAIN BUILDING), UNIVERSITY
FARM, ST. ANTHONY PARK, MINN.]
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 AUGUST, 1916 No. 8
How May University Farm and the Minnesota State Horticultural Society be
Mutually Helpful in Developing the Farms and Homes of the Northwest?
A. F. WOODS, DEAN AND DIRECTOR, DEPT. OF AGRI., UNIVERSITY OF MINN., ST.
PAUL.
The farm without its windbreaks, shade trees, fruits, flowers and
garden, if it can be called a home at all is certainly one that needs
developing and improving. There are many abiding places in the
Northwest, as in every other part of the United States, that lack some
essential part of them. The first and most important step with a view to
correcting these conditions is to bring together those interested in
home improvement to talk over problems and difficulties and to plan how
to correct them and to interest others in the movement. This is what
this great society with its auxiliary societies has been and is now
doing most successfully. It is true that your work has been more
particularly from the horticultural view point, but, as I said in the
beginning, fruits and flowers are civilizing and home making influences.
There should be more horticulturally interested people from the farms
affiliated with this society. Each farmers' club should have a
horticultural committee. There are now about nine hundred farmers' clubs
in the state, and the number is increasing constantly. These clubs
represent the communities in which the members live. They include men,
women and children, farmers, preachers, teachers, every member of the
community willing to cooperate. They start things in the community
interest and follow them up. The Agricultural Extension Service of the
University is in close touch with these clubs. The horticulturists of
the service especially might help to arouse the interest of the clubs in
this movement. This society might offer some prizes especially designed
to interest the boys and girls of the farmers' clubs. Each club
horticultural committee should have representation in this society. Some
of the prizes might be memberships or trips to the annual meeting. Many
members of this society are members of such clubs. They could take the
lead in the movement. In this way the society would keep in touch with
the homes and communities of the state, and all would grow together in
horticultural grace--and the other graces that go with it.
[Illustration: A Minnesota farm home with handsome grounds and modern
conveniences.]
The gospel of better homes is like every other gospel. It must be taken
to those who need it and who know it not or are not interested. The
extension service of the University is organized to carry the message of
better homes, better farms, better social and business relations to the
people who need it. Farmers' institutes, short courses, lectures,
demonstration, farm supervision, judging at county fairs, boys' and
girls' club work, institute trains, county agent service, indicate some
of the kinds of work in progress. The press is also a powerful factor in
this work. The Minnesota Farmers' Library, which is made up of timely
publications on all matters of rural interest, has a mailing list of
fifty-five thousand farmers. From six to twelve of these publications
are issued each year. "University Farm Press News" reaches regularly
six hundred papers in the state. "Rural School Agriculture," containing
material especially adapted to the needs of the consolidated and rural
schools, reaches practically every rural and consolidated school in the
state each month. "The Visitor" is a special publication prepared for
the use of the teachers of agriculture in the high schools of the state.
The "Farmers' Institute Annual" is a manual of three hundred pages
published each year in editions of fifty thousand and contains material
of interest to every farmer. Many special articles are prepared for farm
papers. Every department of the extension service and college and
station is in touch with the farm homes of the state through
correspondence, and much valuable work is accomplished in this way. The
aim is always to work from the home as the center, and from that to the
group of homes constituting the community, the township, the county and
the state, in an ever-enlarging circle.
[Illustration: A typical Minnesota consolidated school building.]
The greatest opportunity for better homes and better farms and a better
country life is in enlisting the children of the country in the
movement. When I say the children of the country, I do not mean to
exclude the children of the villages and towns whose tastes may lead
them countryward. We should never stop or attempt to stop the free
movement between the country and the city. It is good for both. The
children of today will be the farmers and farm home makers and the
business men and women of tomorrow. Are the children of the farmers
looking forward with interest to farming as a business, and life in the
country as attractive? The movement to the city in ever-increasing
numbers is the answer, but it is the answer to what has been and now is,
rather than to what is to be. A new day is dawning, in which the
brightest minds and the choicest spirits will again choose to live in
the open country and make there the ideal homes from which shall
continue to come the life and vigor of the nation. But if it is to be
so, the schools of the country must furnish real intelligent leadership
and the country church must come again to spiritual leadership. We must
all help to bring this about.
Minnesota has a plan to accomplish this, and it is working out even
better than we dared hope. Experience has shown that by consolidation or
the cooperation of several districts, good results may be secured at no
greater cost than the same type of school costs in town. The small
school of today is expensive because it is inefficient. The consolidated
school is giving the children of the country the education that they
need and is doing it better than it can be done anywhere else. The
consolidated school is becoming the rural community center. An important
feature which has been adopted by many of the consolidated districts is
the building of a home for the teachers in connection with the school.
This home may be made typical of what the modern home should be, not
expensive but substantial, artistic, convenient and sanitary. The
grounds should be suitably planted with trees, shrubs and flowers, and
there should be a garden. The school building is also made to fit the
needs of the community. The larger rooms may be used for entertainments,
farmers' club meetings, lectures, etc. There should be facilities for
testing milk and other agricultural products, examining soils, etc.
There should be a shop for wood and iron work, or at least a work bench
and an anvil. There should be a library of good reading and a place to
cook and bake and sew. There should be a typewriter, a piano or an
organ, and such other conveniences for teaching and social center work
as the community may wish and be able to secure, and, best of all,
teachers living at the school who know how to operate the plant in
every detail and to make it useful to the community.
[Illustration: An ideal plan for consolidated school grounds.]
There were nine of these schools five years ago in Minnesota. According
to the last report of the Department of Public Instruction, there are
142 now, and the number is increasing constantly. The state as a state
is behind the movement and is giving substantial aid, direction and
supervision to these schools. When the forward movement was planned,
plans were also made to train teachers and to give the teachers already
in the service special work that would fit them to adjust themselves to
the new needs.
The normal schools and the high schools teaching agriculture, manual
training and home economics have adjusted their courses to meet this new
demand. Six years ago the work had hardly begun. Today there are 214
high and graded schools teaching home economics, 177 teaching
agriculture, 125 teaching manual training, and of these 121 are
preparing teachers especially for the rural schools.
The College of Agriculture and Home Economics of the University of
Minnesota is training the teachers in these subjects for the high
schools and normal schools, and, in cooperation with the State
Superintendent of Public Instruction, the Department of Agriculture has
been conducting a summer school for rural teachers, where those already
teaching and those planning to teach can get the training required to
meet the new conditions and demands. Similar summer schools have been
conducted in cooperation with the agricultural schools at Crookston and
Morris. All together each year there are between 1,800 and 2,000
teachers taking these special courses. Every effort is made to bring to
these teachers the view point of the new country life movement.
This society and the members individually in their home communities
should stand squarely behind this movement. They should become
thoroughly informed regarding it. It is the cornerstone of the new
country life.
Finally I wish to call your attention again to the great educational
opportunity which you are missing. If you could come into vital contact
each year with more than 4,000 young men and women who are seeking for
everything that will help them to be more useful citizens, would you do
it? You could exert in that way an exceedingly great influence on the
homes and future welfare of this state and nation. You can do it if you
will come out and live with us the year round at University Farm. We
should have a building there suited to your needs that we could all use
as a great horticultural center, open the year round. You have already
taken steps in this direction. I hope that conditions will be such that
we can join hands to get it very soon.
* * * * *
SAN JOSE SCALE REQUIRES PROMPT ACTION--ORCHARD SHOULD EITHER BE
DESTROYED OR SPRAYED BEFORE BUDS OPEN.--There are a few orchards in
Colorado that are found to be infested with the San Jose scale.
Owners of these orchards should determine upon one of two courses to
pursue. The orchard should either be promptly cut down and destroyed, or
the trees should be thoroughly treated with lime-sulphur solution or a
good quality of miscible oil for the destruction of the scale before the
buds open in the spring.
If lime-sulphur is determined upon, the home-made article may be used,
or the commercial lime-sulphur solutions may be used, in which case they
should be diluted with water, in the proportion of one gallon of the
commercial lime-sulphur to not more than ten gallons of water. The
application should be made thoroughly, so that every bit of the bark of
trunk and limbs is covered with the spray.
If miscible oil is used, I would recommend using one gallon of the oil
to each nineteen gallons of water. Hard or alkaline waters should be
avoided, as sometimes the oil will not make a good emulsion with them.
Use soft water, if possible.--C.P. Gillette, Colorado Agricultural
Experiment Station.
The Horticulturist as King.
C. S. HARRISON, NURSERYMAN, YORK, NEB.
Some of the promises regarding our future stagger us with their
vastness. "To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me on my
throne." But how is it down here? Thou "crownest him with riches and
honor." Thou hast "put all things under his feet." Unto fields where
feet of angels come not we are chosen as partners of the Heavenly Father
to make this a more fruitful and beautiful world.
In our life work much depends on our attitude regarding our calling. We
can plod like an ox, or like Markham's semi-brute man with the hoe, and
make that the badge of servitude to toil, or we can make it a wand in a
magician's hand to call forth radiant forms of beauty from the somber
earth to smile upon us and load the air with fragrance. We can live down
in the basement of horticulture or in the upper story.
Man is coming to his own. The savage trembled at the lightning stroke
which shivered the mighty oak. Little knew he that here was a giant at
play waiting to be tamed and harnessed so he could be the most obedient
servant--ready at the master's beck to leap a continent, dive under the
ocean, draw heavy trains, and run acres of machinery. Man reaches out
his wand, and steam, gas, and oil rise up to do his will.
If, with the advance of civilization, he wants beautiful things to adorn
person or home, he finds subterranean gardens of precious gems almost
priceless in value--gems that are immortals, flowers that never fade,
prophets all of the "glory to be revealed."
You have heard of the marvelous Persian garden of gems--four hundred
feet in length and ninety feet wide--made to imitate the most beautiful
blooms of earth. It cost millions upon millions. Do you know that it is
in your power, with the advance of floriculture, to create gardens far
more resplendent in beauty--great gardens of delight fit for the touch
of angel's feet, while the whole is flooded with billows of sweetest
perfume? Three years ago that was a patch of barren earth; now you have
pulled down a section of paradise upon it and condensed there the tints
of the morning, the splendors of the evening, the beauty of the rainbow,
and the effulgence which flames in the mantles of the suns.
I love to think of Nature as a person--first born daughter of God--her
head white with the snows of the centuries, her cheeks radiant with the
flush of recurrent springtime, emblems of eternal youth. She takes you
by the hand, leads you into the forests, talks to you of the soul of the
tree, tells you how intelligent it is. There is one standing in the
open. It has performed a feat no civil engineer can emulate. Think of
those roots so busily scurrying around in the earth, gathering food to
send up the cambium highway to nourish the trees. See the taut cords
thrown out to anchor it against the storms. Look at those trees on the
outskirts. Among wild animals the strongest are on guard on the outside
to protect the herd. So these sentinel trees guard their wards against
the storms. Fool man cuts down the guards and the wards fall before the
sweep of the storm. Mother Nature--dear, friendly soul--takes you into
her holy of holies and reveals her mysteries. She makes a confident of
you. She throws open her doors and shows you the wide vistas of a new
land you may enter and glorify. Follow her direction, and what a friend
you have! Cross her, thinking you know more than she does, and she
laughs at you. She takes you into the garden and the nursery and
discloses her wonders and helps you to work miracles. You plant seeds
and bulbs, and beauty rises to greet you. Did you ever think of the
royal position of the florist and horticulturist?
The sacred poet speaks of the "labor of the olive." What a flood of
light that opens upon us. "All things are yours." Let us go out into the
grove you have planted. I once took off my hat to myself. While living
in the Republican Valley, near the 100th meridian, I planted some bull
pine seed. When the little trees were large enough, I transplanted them
in rows six feet apart and started a miniature forest. Twenty-five years
after I went to see them. The rows were straight. The trees had fine
bodies six inches through. They were miniature columns in a temple,
holding up a canopy of green. The ground was covered with a thick carpet
of needles. It was one of the most pleasing sights I ever saw. Then I
thought, "What if I had planted forty acres?" I would have had a Mecca
to which horticultural pilgrims would have flocked from hundreds of
miles. I planted the trees, and the faithful servants kept on working
day and night, and that beautiful grove was the result. Every tree you
plant is your servant, and how faithful it is--no shirking, always at it
whether you are looking or not. Look at that cherry tree. How the tiny
rootlets scurry through the soil--faithful children gathering food to
send up to their mother. Look at that flood of bloom. Then the fruit
grows till a mass of red gleams from the leafy coverts. There is a great
difference between a patch of brown earth and your faithful Jonathan.
What a marvel that little patch of soil, absolutely milked by those busy
foragers, and the extracts of it glowing in red beauty on the tree. Talk
of chemists! Those quiet rootlets surpass them all.
[Illustration: Albert Victor iris, from Mr. Harrison's garden--about
one-third size.]
If you want to be in the realm of miracles, lay down your hoe awhile and
sit among your flowers. Your brain devised the plan, your hand planted
the seeds and bulbs. "Behold the lilies, how they grow." Now sit there
and think it out. At your feet are artists no human skill may imitate.
Two peonies grow side by side. Golden Harvest opens with yellow petals
fading to purest white. In the center is a miniature Festiva
Maxima--blood drops and all. How can those roots send up the golden
tints, the snowy white and the red, and never have the colors mixed?
Close by is a Plutarch, deep brilliant red. The roots intermingle. How
is it possible to pick out of the dull soil, Nature's eternal drab, that
brilliant color for your peony? There are your iris, the new sorts
absolutely undescribable. There are a dozen different shades in a single
bloom. But those blind artists at work in their subterranean studios
never make a mistake. The standards must have just such colors, the
falls just such tints, and where did they get that dazzling radiant
reflex such as you see on Perfection, Monsignor and Black Knight? But it
is always there shimmering in the sunlight. There is a fairy--a pure
snowy queen. How was that sweetness and purity ever extracted from the
scentless soil? Every bloom uncorks a vial of perfume which has the odor
of the peach blossom.
Did you ever sit down in your kingdom and see what a royal throne you
occupied? What a reception your flowers give you! The ambrosia and
nectar of the feasts of the deities of fable are overshadowed by the
fragrance and sweetness of your worshippers. It would seem that every
flower, like a royal subject, was bent on rendering the most exalted
honor to her king. No company of maidens preparing for nuptials were
ever arrayed like these. Each one is striving to do her best. The
highest art ever displayed in the palaces of kings is no comparison to
the beauty and splendor of your reception. By divine right you are
supreme. The fertile soil puts her tributes at your feet; for you all
the viewless influences of nature are at work; for you the sun shines
and the showers fall. So brothers, don't creep but mount up as on
eagle's wings. Invoice yourself and see how great you are! Don't live
all the while in the basement--spend some time in the upper story of
your calling!