making a rank growth, do you think it is as hardy as an orchard seeded
down, and do you think that a Wealthy orchard would blight more than
other kinds?
Mr. Andrews: If the ground is rich and under thorough cultivation it
does tend to cause fire blight. I haven't followed it on anything but
young orchards. When they have commenced to bear then we have generally
seeded down and turned in the hogs, and we have rather neglected the
cultivation after that. I do think that if we had cultivated a little
more often it would have been better.
Mr. Older: What do you consider the best to seed down with, clover or
alfalfa?
Mr. Andrews: I have never tried alfalfa. I don't see why it wouldn't be
all right, if you don't try to keep it too long. It would furnish the
nitrogen all right.
Mr. Older: Which kind of seeding down would you prefer, what kind of
clover? Would you want the Alsike clover or sweet clover for an apple
orchard?
Mr. Andrews: I haven't tried anything but the medium clover. The sweet
clover I think would be rather a rank grower.
Mr. Older: If you are going to mow it, why not mow the sweet clover same
as the other?
Mr. Andrews: That would be all right. If you were going to use it for
mulching, I think it would be the thing, because it would be better for
mulching than for feeding.
Mr. Ludlow: I would like to give a little experience in putting in
alfalfa in an orchard. We got the seed, the Grimm alfalfa, I think, is
the name of it, and I got a good stand. We got seed from it the first
year, and I sowed more, but there seemed to be something about the
alfalfa that would draw the pocket-gophers from two miles around. The
second year I think I had nineteen of my thriftiest apple tree roots all
eaten off. I didn't know there was one in the field because there were
no mounds at all. In the spring I found where they were at work, and I
catch on an average of twenty pocket-gophers out of that mound every
year. Talk about cultivating, the pocket-gophers will cultivate it, and
the alfalfa is pretty much all eaten out and it has come into bluegrass.
Mr. Harrison: That question as to alfalfa; the experience is always that
the roots go too deep so it hurts the apple trees. Red clover seems to
be the clover that is favored by most people.
Mr. Andrews: Mr. Ludlow spoke of the pocket-gopher favoring alfalfa. We
have a patch of alfalfa right near the apple trees. I don't remember
that I have noticed any pocket-gophers work in that piece at all. On the
opposite side of the road, where it is clover and timothy, why, they
work there tremendously. I know Brother Ludlow was telling us a little
while ago at dinner about pocket-gophers working on his place, and I
wouldn't wonder if he is blessed with an extra colony of them there.
Mr. Ludlow: I try to catch them all out every year. I catch out on an
average about eighteen to twenty every fall, so as to catch them before
they increase early in the spring. It seems as though they came from a
distance. I know one came into my garden this year. I didn't know there
was a gopher within a mile, and in one night he made four mounds in the
middle of my strawberry bed.
Mrs. Glenzke: Did you ever try poisoning them?
Mr. Ludlow: No, I never did. I am most successful in catching them in a
trap.
Mr. Brackett: Have you got any pocket-gophers that do not make mounds?
Do you understand that?
Mr. Ludlow: No, sir, I don't understand that, but when they came in and
killed the nineteen trees in the fall I hadn't seen a mound there. In
the spring I found where they were at work, and then I went after them.
City "Foresters" and Municipal Forests.
PROF. E. G. CHENEY, UNIVERSITY FARM, ST. PAUL.
Several cities in the state have appointed "city foresters." This is a
step in the right direction, if it is a precursor to the establishment
of municipal forests for these men to manage; otherwise it is a misnomer
and can only be misleading to the people. The city governments, in an
endeavor to create a complete park organization, have so far adopted
this title from European practice without much regard to the duties of
the officer. A forester handles trees in mass formations,--sometimes for
timber production, sometimes for the protection of water-sheds,
sometimes for aesthetic effect or park purposes,--but always in the
mass.
The handling of shade trees such as we have in our city streets is the
work of an arborist. The planting of large ornamental trees, the pruning
of the individual for formal effect, the filling of cavities and the
bracing of weak parts, are no part of a forester's work; nor do they
necessarily fall within his knowledge. An expert should undoubtedly be
in charge of the work, but an expert arborist, not a forester. The title
is, therefore, when combined with the present duties, unfortunate,
because it gives the people--still struggling with a hazy conception of
forestry--a wrong idea of the true character of the real forester's
work.
Two very obvious ways of avoiding the difficulty present
themselves,--either to change the title or to change the duties. The
former would probably be much easier of accomplishment, but the latter
is without question the course which the city ought to pursue. Since the
cities have adopted the title of "city forester," and so obtained a more
complete park organization on paper, why not make the improvement real
by adopting the rest of the European practice and creating city forests
for these new officers to handle? That would indeed be a real
improvement, and one without which any city park system is lamentably
lame.
Nearly every large city has some large park within in limits kept in a
more or less natural condition as a recreation ground for its people,
thus recognizing its influence for health and social betterment. How
much it would increase this influence if there were a considerable tract
of forest within easy reach of the city! How much better approach it
would make to the city than the unsightly waste places so often
encountered! How much better setting it would make for the suburban
residence sections!
Such a municipal forest is not a Utopian dream, but a practical thing
well within the reach of almost any city. The law passed by the last
legislature makes it possible for a city to purchase land for such a
purpose either within or without the city limits. The activities of the
present park boards show that money can be obtained to carry out such
plans. The establishment of the forests would be less expensive than is
generally imagined. The amount of money expended on the Gateway Park in
Minneapolis would buy hundreds of acres of city land within fifteen
miles of the city. With the aid of a municipal nursery, such as every
park system should have, this land could be planted up at a total
expense, for stock and labor, of six to eight dollars per acre. The cost
of maintenance would be limited to the patrol of the tract to prevent
fire and trespass. Of course, there might be no money revenue from the
forest for many years, but in a comparatively short time it would begin
to fulfill its purpose as a park, and once the timber is mature, there
would be a continuous net annual income of from five to ten dollars per
acre. Suppose that the city had 10,000 acres of such forest paying a net
annual revenue--in addition to its full services as a park--of from
$50,000 to $100,000 toward the maintenance of the other city parks, and
it must be remembered that for every dollar of net revenue the forest
would pay an additional dollar or more in wages to swell the coffers of
the city;--certainly that would be something very much better than
anything that the city has at present.
St. Paul, with the bottom lands and cliffs on either side of the river
between Hastings and Minneapolis, could make a beautiful and profitable
park of what now threatens to develop into a monumental waste. Duluth
could make a forest which would be unsurpassed in beauty and usefulness
by any in the world out of the brushy, unoccupied, rock-bound hills as
far west as Thompson. Mankato has a glorious chance for the same work
along the Minnesota valley. Virginia and Hibbing could do nothing better
than make such use of the rocky, mine-scarred hills in their vicinity.
And so opportunity might be cited for almost any city in the state. For
the municipal forest need not be confined to the big cities. In fact, in
some respects the smaller city has an advantage over the larger place.
Suitable land can usually be obtained near the city at a much more
reasonable price and the revenue obtained bear a much larger ratio to
the total expenses of the town. There are some small towns in Germany
where the entire running expenses are paid by the revenues of the town
forest, and one or two where the forest not only pays all of the taxes
but also pays a cash pension to a number of the older inhabitants.
Certainly our towns, looking forward to an endless and progressive
existence, cannot afford to neglect this opportunity to develop a useful
park, to provide a source of cheap wood and lumber for future
generations and a substantial revenue for the city.
Expert advice need not be employed until the size and revenue of the
forest warrants it, for the State Forest Service stands ready to
help--by the selection of land, the formulation of plans, and
consultation--any city that is wise enough to take advantage of this
law.
The "city forester" can then be a forester indeed, and one of the good
points of the European city government will have been adopted in fact as
well as in name.
The Salome Apple.
H. W. HARRISON, ROCHESTER, MINN. SO. MINN. HORT. SOCIETY.
The Salome apple is named after one of the faithful Bible characters,
Salome, who was associated with Martha and Mary while our Savior was on
earth and was also a witness of his crucifixion. Thus the name alone
commands respect. It was originated in eastern Canada, and it was
introduced here some twenty-five years ago by the Princeton Nursery
Company of Illinois and has proven to be very hardy on different soils
and locations. It is grown in the southern tier of counties of Minnesota
and as far north as New Ulm.
Like all good things it has had a hard fight to overcome its opponents.
At the time it was introduced here there were Ben Davis and other tender
varieties delivered in its place in certain localities. These not being
hardy of course gave the Salome a black eye. Nevertheless it is an apple
that should be grown extensively because of its hardiness, its clean
appearance and upright growth, spreading just enough to admit air and
light.
Its fruit will keep in ordinary cellars until May or June. It is medium
in size and color, red streaked with green and yellow. Flesh is yellow
and sub acid. Like all winter varieties it is slow to come in bearing
but yielding heavily when it does bear, whenever other varieties do. Let
us not lose sight of this excellent fruit in our desire to produce
something new and original.
How May the State University and the Horticultural Society Best
Co-Operate?
GEO. E. VINCENT, PRESIDENT MINN. STATE UNIVERSITY, MINNEAPOLIS.
Now, so far as I can understand, the only excuse for interpolating me in
a program of this kind is that you are giving so much attention to
technical subjects, you are working so hard, you need from time to time
relief in order that you may not suffer from brain fever or any of the
ailments of overstudy. I am confident from this point of view anything I
may have to say will meet that need completely.
The relationship between this society and the university strikes me as
typically American. There are two ways of doing things--leaving public
undertakings entirely to private initiative, to individuals, to
voluntary groups; that is one plan. There is another plan which consists
in putting everything into the hands of the state. Constituted authority
takes charge of the whole life of the citizen's, all the activities and
enterprise are made public, state affairs.
Those are the two extremes. The dangers of those two methods are very
obvious. Many enterprises left to private initiative will be done in
haphazard fashion; there will be duplication and waste. When the state
undertakes all these enterprises it changes the whole aspect. Public
management may make for a certain efficiency, but it sooner or later
undermines the initiative, the feeling of responsibility of the
individual. We are a practical people, we compromise and combine the
various methods of doing things. It is the typical American way to
combine private initiative with a certain measure of state co-operation.
The work for horticulture in the state of Minnesota has been developed
under exactly these conditions.
If I remember rightly, this society was organized in 1867. It has
assumed a definite leadership in the development of horticulture in the
state of Minnesota; the university has gradually been adapting itself,
so to speak, to the work of this society. The society and the university
have officially been in close relationship. I believe that in the early
days the secretary was at the same time a university officer and for the
last twenty-five years, I am told that at least one expert of the
university staff has always been a member of the executive board of this
society. This has made a personal bond.
Then the society has done a great many important things. You have stood
by at times when people were not perfectly certain about the importance
of various kinds of scientific work. You have been steadfast. Sometimes
it required courage to stand for the scientific ideals which the
university was attempting to carry out in important work that had a
bearing upon horticulture.
And you have, of course, the chief responsibility and distinction of
having seen to it that our fruit-breeding farm should be established. I
believe you were also kind enough to pick out the site, although none of
you were personally interested in the particular real estate ultimately
purchased.
So that we feel--we of the university feel--that the work of
horticulture in this state is distinctly a co-operative undertaking, and
that the leadership and enterprise and vision of this society have been
the chief things that developed horticulture in Minnesota to the point
it has reached. But we do believe that the co-operation of your
university is an important and, we hope, from now on will be an
increasingly important thing. Certain work is going on constantly at the
University in the various departments, and that work is of distinct
benefit because you recognize it.
We had a good illustration a few minutes ago. The professor of soils was
having his brains picked, as he had a perfect right to have, by you. You
were asking him questions, and I noticed once or twice he said he didn't
know. That must have inspired confidence in him; I have a good deal of
faith in people who don't know it all. That shows two things--they have
a sense of humor, and they expect to find out. There is something
pathetic in a person who knows it all; it is a case of arrested
development.
So out of the department of soils you expect to get the result of
careful and scientific study of the nature of soils. From the department
of plant pathology you expect to learn about the various forms of plant
diseases and the way in which these may be eliminated. From the
department of entomology you expect to learn something about the
troublesome insects, which are so universal an annoyance. I think they
simply exist to test our character, to see whether we have courage to go
on, bugs or no bugs. We do the best we can to become familiar with the
habits of these nefarious creatures and let you know what we know. So I
might call attention to one or two other departments--but you know how
much is being accomplished. You get regular reports. You have a
committee to visit and investigate our fruit-breeding farms. If I may
judge from the reports which your committee makes--I don't know whether
it is because it is one of your children and you are indulgent--your
committee seems to think good things are being done and distinct
progress recorded at the fruit-breeding farm. With your support and
confidence we are enlarging the work there. It seems we should have more
land in the early future, and we may ask for your co-operation in
convincing the powers that be that such increase of territory is
necessary.
How many members have you? 3,407 members, I believe. Perhaps you have
more since that number was given this morning. At any rate, there is a
good number, and when you think of all the wisdom and all the experience
that those 3,407 people have, it seems a great pity not to get it
organized in better form. Come and pick some more brains while these
brains are still available and organize this great mass of knowledge.
Here is the next problem. Who are the people that are going to take your
places? Who is to have a gold watch given him fifty years from now--or
given to her fifty years from now? This thing is to go on, and how? It
goes on by discovering in Minnesota the horticulturally-minded people in
the state; you must always be on the lookout for people who are to do
the big things. The great European governments are considering how they
are going to keep their armies recruited, how the next generation is to
be brought in and organized. That is the same problem in every nation.
It is extremely necessary to put out dragnets for specialists. There are
probably thousands of men in Minnesota who are horticulturists, they are
dormant horticulturists, and your business and ours is to try to
discover them. So the problem with us is how to get out the dragnet.
You know there is a great biological principle that is illustrated in
the lower types of animals. Millions of fish eggs are produced for every
hundred that actually fertilize and amount to anything. So when you are
looking for results in a great subject, when you are trying to discover
people, when you are putting out a dragnet, you have to try a very large
number with the hope of discovering the relatively few who really show
the divine spark, who are really the men that you are looking for.
It is a very interesting thing when you come to think about it, all the
while we are looking for special ability in modern activities we do it
by fashion. Fashion is something that victimizes the ladies. They do not
care for fashion itself, it is thrust upon them from the outside. Most
women conform to fashion on the principle of protective coloring; they
do not care for it themselves, but they do not want to be conspicuous by
not conforming; so they protect themselves that way.
I consider fashion is a beneficial thing when you look at it the right
way. By fashion all kinds of new things are started throughout the
country, and you discover certain people who have a special aptitude. It
becomes the fashion to do various things, and in many cases people
become interested and develop their own special tastes and faculties.
I am tremendously interested just now in rural education. We want a
rural school that will be attractive. We are interested in getting
houses for the teachers to be built right alongside the school house.
Then there will be the garden in connection with the house, the flower
garden and the tree planting. Some of us are looking forward to the time
when the rural school will be the most charming spot in all the
countryside, not a place from which the teacher escapes at the earliest
possible moment on Friday to return reluctantly on Monday morning, but a
place where she wants to remain, where the rural school will be the
center of the community and community life. It will be an attractive
place for the best kind of teacher. When we can get to that point we
shall be able to establish in the rural regions an institution that will
be a vital part of the whole community and a thing of joy and of beauty.
That gospel might be extended to the tree planting on the farmstead. You
know what the state art society had been doing. There is another
dragnet. You have seen the Minnesota Art Journal, which is dealing with
the problems in tree planting of the farm, planting around the farm
house; That in connection with the modern farm house that has been
suggested, these things have a very important bearing upon problems in
which both you and the university are interested.
And then we can look forward to the time when you will have your
permanent home, if not on the farm grounds themselves at least near
there, where we could co-operate and use the same building, so that
while it would be yours you will feel that it is being utilized
throughout the year in such a way that the expenditure of the money
would be justified.
There is a fine vista ahead of us, a vista of the things to be,
accomplished by means of this American combination of private initiative
and enterprise and idealism and the support of the state for certain
details of work which can be best accomplished in that way.
The Shelter Belt for Orchard and Home Grounds.
A DISCUSSION LED BY JOHN W. MAHER, NURSERYMAN, DEVILS LAKE, N. DAK.
Mr. Maher: The subject this morning is to be on "Shelter-Belt for
Orchard and Home Grounds." I am satisfied, provided the "Home Grounds"
include the whole farm.
The entire farm needs shelter, particularly from the hot, drying winds
and other destructive winds that uncover and cut down crops in
springtime and carry away the fertile top soil; and the summer winds,
hot winds, of course, that eat up the moisture; and those destructive
winds that sometimes harvest our barley and other crops before they are
cut. We need protection from all these winds, and in this latitude these
winds blow uniformly from the southwest. So every farm should be
protected from them by a substantial shelter-belt on the west and south
sides, which can also be the farm wood-lot.
[Illustration: Apple tree windbreak at Devil's Lake Nursery. Hibernal in
the foreground. Patten's Greening in the distance.]
There is another phase of protection that has been emphasized this year
very much, and that is, protection against summer frosts and late spring
frosts. A gentleman living at McIntosh, near Crookston, in this state,
told me that corn matured up there wherever it was protected from the
north wind. At the Devils Lake Nursery we had a 400-bushel per acre
potato crop protected only by the blocks of nursery stock, whereas the
yield in the vicinity was from nothing to fifty bushels per acre--and I
believe if Mr. Andrews will inquire into the location of the good apple
crops about Faribault he will probably find they were saved by similar
shelter protection, or the natural lay of the land.
Mr. Kellogg: What is your best windbreak?
Mr. Maher: The evergreen is the best windbreak for the reason that it
gives more shelter, retains its leaves in the winter and fewer rows of
trees will make a good shelter-belt. The variety--that is, west of the
timber line in Minnesota--I should say the best would be the Ponderosa
pine, or bull pine, after that the jack pine may be, or else the
Colorado blue spruce and the Black Hills spruce.
Mr. Kellogg: Colorado spruce is too expensive to set out as a windbreak.
Mr. Maher: Well, the green varieties. I don't see why they should be any
more costly than the others. Of course, they are held at a higher price,
but they make a good windbreak because they are easily grown and are
perfectly hardy to stand the dry atmosphere and the hot winds.
[Illustration: American Elm windbreak at Devil's Lake, N.D.]
Mr. Kellogg: What is the reason there are so few of them really blue?
Mr. Maher: I don't know. There is only a small percentage, probably 15
per cent., that are blue. I think the dryer atmosphere produces more
blue than the more humid atmosphere. We have more blues in North Dakota
than you will find even here. I believe it is the dry atmosphere and the
intense sunlight that causes the blue, because the red cedar in North
Dakota, the native red cedar, is really a silver cedar and has a blue
sheen, or rather, a silver sheen.
A Member: How large do the trees have to be to be of benefit?