304 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Mr. Ferris (Iowa) : Do you cultivate into August? 

 Mr. Underwood : It depends upon whether the weather is dry. 

 We keep a loose surface on top of the ground to arrest the evap- 

 oration of moisture. I don't care whether it is August or Novem- 

 ber, I want to keep moisture in the ground. 



Capt. Reed : Will the Baldwin and the Jonathan kill any 

 quicker than the more hardy varieties? Will thev kill any quicker 

 than the Duchess or the Wealthy? 



Mr. Underwood : I think I answered that question a few mo- 

 ments ago. I think there is a difference in the structure of the 

 wood of the trees, just the same as there is a difference in the 

 structure of the oak and the soft maple ; there is a difference 

 in the structure, and I do not think that the cellular structure 

 of the Baldwin is as well adapted to the conditions of our climate 

 here as the Hibernal, and I do not think the grafting of the Baldwin 

 onto a hardy root would necessarily make that tree hardy. 



Capt. Reed: Then the killing must come from the top? 

 Mr. Underwood: That is, where the top is injured. 

 Mr. Brackett : Did I understand you to say that a tender rooc 

 would be made more hardy by grafting an Hibernal on to it? 



Mr. Underwood : I did not say that, but I have found where 

 you have a strong growing top and a vigorous variety, like the Vir- 

 ginia crab or the Hibernal, it makes a stronger and more vigorous 

 root system. I have demonstrated that. 



Prof. Hansen : That is true, but it will not always convey 

 hardiness. 



Mr. Brackett : I agree with Mr. Underwood in regard to the 

 matter of watering. I spent three years at Mitchell, S. D. I took 

 trees there with we when I moved, I set out an orchard and lost 

 every tree. There was no moisture, and they all killed out. We 

 were close to the city of Mitchell. People who had the same varie- 

 ties of trees in the town, and who watered them thoroughly, suc- 

 ceeded in wintering them perfectly, and they bore good crops of 

 fruit. In Minnesota if a person follows up thorough cultivation it 

 is a question of a few years only when he will get blight in his or- 

 chard, and the blight will entirely ruin it. Mr. Modlin, of Excel- 

 sior, one of the most thorough orchardists in the state, planted an 

 orchard, and when I came there is was a model orchard. I never 

 saw anything nicer in my life, and the Wealthy were particularly 

 fine. He gave them thorough cultivation, and they became sub- 

 ject to blight, which nearly ruined the orchard, while the orchard 

 right across the road, the old Murray orchard, that had not been 

 cultivated for years and stood in bluegrass sod, bore large crops 

 every year, and is in perfect condition today. 



Mr. Martin : Regarding the question of watering trees, what 

 would you recommend, in the case of an old orchard that had been 

 neglected, and which is on a slope where the soil had washed away, 

 leaving the ground higher around the tree than anywhere else, so 

 it forms a watershed, — what is to be done in a case like that? 



Mr. Underwood : If they are large trees, of course, the root 

 system extends down probably ten to fifteen feet. It is a pretty 

 radical case and hard to treat. If I had to plant trees on ground 



