26G STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Mr. Lay claimed that he had set in the spring what are called dormant buds, 

 and they had made large growths and lived through the succeeding winter 

 without damage. And he claimed that if they would grow in the field and 

 live, they would live in the nursery row. Few of our winters, he claimed, — only 

 one in the past fifteen years, — were severe enough to kill the trees if left in the 

 nursery, and he inclined to the belief that the nurserymen trenched the trees 

 knowing that it decreased the chances for their living after transplanting, but 

 determining to make the orchardists bear a part of the risk from severe win- 

 ters. He thought, too, that the trenching was done so that the ground could 

 sooner be had for a new crop. 



Mr. La Fleur said that if "dormant buds" are hardier and withstand rigorous 

 weather better than do trees from the nursery row, it is because growing out 

 alone, and having been transplanted, they make a slower, and therefore 

 hardier growth. Any tree growing by itself is stronger than a tree of the same 

 sort grown among others. 



"Dormant buds" are the budded trees taken from the nursery and set the 

 spring after budding, and before the inserted bud on the seedling stock has 

 started to grow. 



Mr. Buck said the object in trenching the trees was to preserve them. If 

 they froze at all in the trenches, they would freeze worse, and further down, in 

 the row. The covering part way up the stalk, as practiced in the trenches, 

 would preserve some of the lower buds of the ingrafted stock, and so save the 

 tree, while the same weather that would kill its top in the trench would kill it 

 below the ingrafted bud in the nursery row. There was no gain of time or 

 land to the nurseryman ; it was all extra work. 



Mr. Lay held to his preference for leaving the trees in the nursery row. He 

 would take his chances of weather for the sake of the increased vitality at time 

 of planting. 



Mr. Sailor said that at the east some advocated fall planting, but he would 

 not practice it. He preferred trenching and covering the tops with something 

 — evergreen boughs were good — for protection. 



The damage done to trees during the past winter was mentioned. 



Mr. Dumont said it had occurred on the lower lands, mostly, and he thought 

 it was caused by the circulation of sap in warm times and subsequent freezing. 

 Others concurred in this theory. 



Mr. Sutherland said he would take trees in the fall intended for spring 

 planting ; would dig a trench across a northeast slope, put the trees in, tops 

 down hill, cover with earth one-third their length, and let the snow drift over 

 the tops. He preferred medium-size, straight trees. Some of the best orchards 

 on the lake shore were grown from "dormant buds." 



May Meeting. 



Insect pests received the society's attention at the meeting in this month, 

 the rosebug, curculio, and codling moth getting the greater share. 



Mr. L. A. Lilly spoke of the codling moth, giving first its natural history. 

 As soon as the fruit forms, a single egg is laid in the blossom end of the fruit, 

 and as soon as the egg hatches the larva enters the apple. In three weeks the 

 larva matures, leaves the apple, and in some concealed place spins a silken 

 cocoon, and assumes the chrysalis state. In from nine to fifteen days, vary- 

 ing with the temperature, the moth issues. The apples are again stocked with 

 eggs as before, after which comes a recurrence of the work, except that the 

 larvae upon leaving the apple simply spin cocoons, in which they remain till 



