228 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



ciple these three miUion acres of Minnesota land, when they be- 

 come a normal forest, at the end of eighty years would yield annually 

 675,000,000 feet board measure, and at the present prices would 

 yield a. net revenue of $3,000,000. In German forests it is common 

 for each one hundred acres to furnish employment to one n.a.j, 

 steady employment, and on that basis the 3,000,000 acres of Min- 

 nesota land would give, employment to 30,000 men the year round. 



I wish you would think of these things, and think what a legacy 

 this would be to the state if it could be accomplished. 



THE HARDY ROOT PROBLEM. 



A communication from Amasa Stewart, an old time member, now 

 living at Lamarque, Texas. 



"I see that your president and others are working on the same 

 thing that I worked on for twenty-five, years in Minnesota: that 

 is, the hardy root problem. There is but one way that I have 

 found to be sure to get an apple tree on hardy roots, and that is to 

 get a hardy tree on its own roots. You cannot depend on seed 

 from a crab apple or seed from any other apple producing a hardy 

 root or stock, but if you have a hardy tree on its own roots the 

 roots will be hardy. 



"My practice was to take scions from a hardy tree, cleft graft 

 them on a piece of young, thrifty root, plant in nursery row, cover- 

 ing the graft all but one or two buds at the top. In one year they 

 will nearly all have taken root from the graft. They can then be 

 taken up and separated from the old root. Be sure to take off every 

 particle of the tender root. 



"In cutting the graft so as to have a bud at the lower end of the 

 graft it will strike root much more readily than without the bud on 

 the point of the graft." 



A Troublesome Appi^e Tree Pest. — "I am in receipt of the letter from 

 J. N. Wishart, enclosing specimen of the branch of his apple trees. This spe- 

 cimen has been injured by what is known as the Buffalo tree hopper. You will 

 find this described on page 171 of our report for 1890. There is no real satis- 

 factory remedy for this pest, and it is doing a large amount of injury. Prof. 

 l,ugger's suggestion was that the trees be jarred onto an umbrella covered with 

 petroleum. 



"These insects were especially abundant a few years ago, and I think that 

 during the last two years I have heard less reports of their injury than formerly. 

 You know how we have waves, as it were, of insects, when for a series of years 

 they will be very abundant and troublesome, and then for another series we 

 will have little injury from them." (Prof.) Samuel B. Green. 



