Читать книгу Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota, 1916 - Various - Страница 104

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The fourth district fruit crops—with the exception of strawberries and raspberries—were conspicuous by their absence this season of 1915.

A festive blizzard that came prancing our way the 17th of May effectually destroyed what promised to be a bumper crop of apples and plums. The trees were for the most part past the blossoming stage, and the fruit had started to develop. Currants and grapes met the same disastrous fate. Only in favored situations, adjacent to large bodies of water, were there any apples, plums, grapes or currants to speak of.

Mr. J. K. Dixon, North St. Paul.

In my orchard, at North St. Paul, we burned wet straw smudges every second row on the outside of the orchard, allowing the wind to drift the smoke through trees. This was done by adding the wet straw at intervals to the burning piles in order to create a continuous dense smoke. When daylight appeared we noticed the ground covered with a beautiful blanket of frost, and decided two men smoking pipes would have been as effective treatment as the smudge.

In this, however, I have since concluded we were mistaken. As the season advanced we noticed the first three or four rows in from the smudges gave us our only apples, whereas the further one went in the fewer were found, until they finally disappeared entirely.

Question: If the above treatment had been given every second or third row throughout orchard, what would the results have been?

Strawberries and raspberries proved their superior ability to withstand the assaults of King Boreas and Jack Frost. Strawberries were in blossom and were saved from total loss by a two or three inch blanket of wet snow that fortunately preceded the frost. Consequently they are reported as fair to good crop. Raspberries, owing to the abundant and regular rainfall, are reported from all over the district as a fair crop. One grower having one-half acre of the St. Regis everbearing red raspberry reports having ripe berries from the last week in June to the 8th day of October, when a big freeze-up put them out of commission. This one-half acre produced 2,000 pints, that sold for fancy prices. Also the everbearing strawberries are reported as making good and proving their claim to recognition as an established institution in the fruit world.

A few of the largest growers report spraying with lime-sulphur and arsenate of lead. However, the rainfall was too abundant at the right time (or wrong time) to get best results.

Very little blight is reported as present the past summer, and what little there was yielded readily to the pruning knife applied five or six inches below infected wood, being careful to sterilize tool in solution of corrosive sublimate. The most serious injury from blight is caused by its attacking tender sprout growths on trunks or large branches. The blight runs very rapidly down the tender wood, penetrating to the cambium layer, where it causes cankers, often girdling entire trunk and killing tree outright. This is especially true of the Virginia crab and Wealthy apple.

Trees and plants came through last winter in A1 condition as a consequence of a mild winter, and this fall they go into winter quarters with abundance of moisture and well ripened wood.

Considerable nursery stock was planted last spring with excellent results, due to plentiful supply of moisture from spring to fall.

While fruit growing in Minnesota is not so extensively engaged in as in some reputed fruit growers' paradises we read about, I wish to state that the South and East (to speak in the vernacular) "has nothing on us." I have reliable information that the same freeze that cleaned us out up here in the North did the same trick for growers at Mobile, Alabama. Therefore, I advise members not to yield to discouragement. Plant and care for varieties recommended in the society planting list and emulate the society motto, "Perseverantia Vincimus."

From replies to letters sent out the following list of varieties appears to be in favor as the most desirable to plant in this district:

Apples: Wealthy, Okabena, Duchess, Patten's Greening.

Crabs: Florence, Whitney, Lyman's Prolific.

Plums: DeSoto, Hawkeye, Wyant, Wolf.

Raspberries: King, Sunbeam, Minnetonka Ironclad.

Currants: Perfection, Prince Albert, Long Bunch Holland, Wilder.

Gooseberries: Carrie, Houghton, Downing.

Grapes: Beta, Concord, Delaware.

Hardy Shrubs: Spirea Van Houtii, Hydrangea P. G., Snowball, Syringa, Tartarian Honeysuckle, Lilac, High-bush Cranberry, Barberry, Sumac, Elderberry, Golden Leaf Elder, Buckthorn for hedges.

Hardy Perennials—Flowers: Delphinium, Campanula, Phlox, Paeonies, Iris, Hermerocallis, Tiger Lilies.

Tender Plants: Dahlias, Gladiolus.