^86 BOAKD 0:1? AGKiCULTUHE. 



Professor Goff: We use oats. We don't use rye, because it sprouts 

 too much in the spring. 



Professor Webster: Which do you regard the best? 



Professor Goff: Oats is the best all around. We tried vetch, but the 

 principal difficulty is that the seed cost about six dollars a bushel, and 

 it malies it pretty expensive. 



Member: In your planting, do you give any attention to pollination 

 in planting? 



Professor Goff: We endeavor, so far as may be, to plant together 

 those that bloom at the same time. It has been well established among 

 native plums that they do not fertilize themselves; so in planting we 

 mix them instead of putting them in blocks. 



Mr. Johnson: Have you been troubled with black knot? 



Professor Goff: We have not been troubled with black knot at all. 



Member: How about rot? 



Professor Goff: We are ti-oubled some with rot. The rot troubles 

 the European and Japanese plums rather more than the American plums. 

 The only remedy for that is to thin them so they do not touch each other, 

 so no two touch each other, and they are not so bad. 



Mr. McMillan: When does the American plum begin to bear? 



Professor Goff: They begin to bear at three years from setting, very 

 often. 



Professor Troop: I don't know that I can answer that question, but 

 I will say that Mr. Carr of Maryland has gi'own this class of plums suc- 

 cessfully in Maryland. He published a statement that the American 

 plums were more profltable to him than the European or the Japanese, 

 because he could get them on the market earlier. 



Mrs. Davis: I have been a raiser of plums since 1890, and I have 

 seventeen varieties, mostly European kinds; I have two native varieties, 

 and I have five or six Japanese varieties, and I have not found that the 

 European kinds winter-kill at all; but they sometimes fail to bear a good 

 crop because I don't thin them enough. I live in the northern part of 

 Laporte County, and I had a good crop every year I thinned. I spray 

 instead of jarring. I used to jar, and found it took up too much time; 

 I did not get my breakfast early enough, and I had to do it myself. I 

 spray every winter with soap suds and kerosene for insects. I also spray 

 with Bordeaux mixture after the blossoms fall, three or four times. I 

 came today to learn something about native plums. I have only two 



