352 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



one Whitney very heavily and left the other unmulched, and I 

 did the same with the Wealthy, and it seemed to me I conducted 

 the experiment in as nearly a perfect manner as it possibly could 

 be conducted. I watched the outcome of the experiment with 

 great interest, and the result was they all bloomed at the same time, 

 both those that were mulched and those that were not mulched. 

 The great difficulty with the experiments reported is that the 

 experimenter usually mulches all his trees and makes a compari- 

 son between his trees and those of some other orchard that were 

 not mulched. Owing to the variety or to the difference in loca- 

 tion there may be a difference of a week in the blooming period 

 in some of our orchards. If Capt. Reed will mulch alternate trees 

 of the same variety, I shall be very much astonished if he does 

 not report different results next winter at our meeting. 



Capt. Reed : I wait till the ground is frozen before I mulch my 

 trees. 



The President : I mulched in February. I mulched with ma- 

 terial taken from our straw pile. I might state it was only a few 

 days before blossoming time that I made an examination of the 

 ground. 



Mr. Radabaugh : You have got to wait till the latter part of 

 winter to mulch. I waited till the snow began to melt on the 

 ground, and then if the mulch is put on it has not time to thaw. 



Prof. Hansen : Did you mulch your whole orchard or only a 

 part of it? 



Mr. Radabaugh : I had only a few trees, but all the other trees 

 were in full bloom on the 8th of May, while this one that I had 

 mulched did not begin to bloom until the 17th. 



Mr. Long: Those of you who were present or who read the 

 report for that year will remember that the late Prof. Pendergast 

 related an instance of a rosebush, which was growing at his home 

 in New Hampshire, pushing the ends of some branches through a 

 broken window light into the kitchen. At the time the ground was 

 frozen to a great depth and was covered with several feet of snow, 

 yet that part of the rosebush that was subjected to the warm 

 atmosphere commenced to leaf out and form flowering buds. In 

 that case the conditions certainly could not have been more favor- 

 able to effect a possible retarding of the growth. 



Prof. Green : I have had quite a little experience along the 

 line mentioned by Mr. Wedge. I think Prof. Pendergast was right. 

 I am very familiar with the cold grapery. The cold grapery is 

 used for the purpose of forwarding grapes. The vines are planted 

 outside and are led through the wall into the house. I know this, 

 and it is not a matter of doing it once or twice, but you start the 

 tops of the vines into growth without any respect to the condition 

 of growth on the outside. These vines brought through the wall 

 from the outside to the inside of the house steadily started into 

 growth, and they made quite a growth before the roots thawed out. 

 If you cut twigs of the pussy willow bush you will have it in flower 

 in a few weeks, and hazel bush in ten days, without any regard 

 whatever to the condition of the roots. I think it is assumed bv 



