302 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



I say, as I said before, we lost an orchard of over six thou- 

 sand trees ; they did not starve to death, I gave them enough food. 

 Then what was the matter? I simply did not give them enough 

 water to drink. It is just like keeping a herd of horses or cattle: 

 you give them enough oats and corn and hay and not any water — 

 and if you have to go three or four miles to water it is a good 

 deal of a job to drive them to water as they do on the prairies, 

 and they go for a long time without water, and they get thin and 

 poor, and they are not thrifty. An apple tree is just something 

 in the same way, and I believe if you get it into your heads that 

 it is moisture they want, and you make sure that your trees do 

 not lack for moisture in the summer time and in the fall of the 

 year when it freezes up, I think you will solve the question. This ■ 

 is just my opinion that has come to me after long years of obser- 

 vation and experience. 



Mr. Ferris (Iowa) : Do you think by ever so much watering 

 you can keep tender varieties through the winter? 



Mr. Underwood : Of course there are exceptions to all rules. 

 It does not make any difference how hardy a tree is, it may kill. 

 Take a Transcendent or a Wealthy, it will root-kill; if it is a Hi- 

 bernal or a Duchess, it will root-kill and become black in the root. 

 As I have seen it a good many times, if you dig down to the roots 

 you will find they are black, while at the same time the tops are 

 green, and the tree will blossom out and then die. So I would 

 not say that a tender variety could be made perfectly hardy. For 

 instance, I would not say that a Baldwin could be made perfectly 

 hardy by giving it plenty of moisture, but I do say that a Transcend- 

 ent is not hardy unless it has sufficient moisture. I have had 

 Duchess and Hibernal trees, large and well established, kill out 

 because, as I think, they suli'ered for want of moisture. You have 

 heard here of some excellent results. Mr. Stone says he fixed a 

 basin to catch the water that would otherwise have run away, and 

 by doing so he has got a well established root system for the Duch- 

 ess, and his trees are in good condition. 



Mr. A. B. Lyman : I think we had at Excelsior general winter- 

 killing in the season of 1884-5, when we had that wet condition 

 that Mr. Stone spoke of. There are many Wealthy orchards stand- 

 ing today that were killed that year at the top but not at the root. 

 It was a peculiar condition in connection with the hard winter. 



Mr. Underwood: I think the truth of this statement may be 

 applied to the top as well as to the root, if we have a condition of 

 severe freezing weather, as we had in that year and in 1898-9, 

 when we had two weeks of thirty below zero. This may be all 

 theory, of course, but I believe that the moisture that is in the top 

 of that tree freezes dry. You take a garment from the wash and 

 wring it dry and hang it out on the line in weather like that, and 

 it will freeze perfectly dry. I have plastered rooms and shut them 

 up tight under such conditions, and they froze dry, and the plas- 

 tering was as good as any I ever saw. In this case if continuous 

 freezing weather will expel the moisture in fresh mortar and in 

 clothes hung on a line, may it not act in a similar way in trees in 

 the orchard"? Then you have another condition of black heart in; 



