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MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



THE CHERRY ORCHARD IN JULY AND AUGUST. 



WALTER A. YAHNKE, WINONA. 



The month of July, or rather the first part of it, is the busiest 

 •season in the cherry orchard. At that time the harvesting and mar- 

 keting of the crop has to be done, and the crop as well as the market 

 has to be watched carefully, for it depends as much on one as on 

 the other to make the cherry orchard profitable. This year's cherry 

 crop was the heaviest we had for years, and the price was good on 

 account of the demand being far ahead of the supply. This shows 

 that cherry growing is by no means overdone and will not be for 

 many years to come, for the demand has been growing faster than 

 the supply year after year. As far as Minnesota is concerned, very 

 few cherries are grown at present. As far as I know, the most of 



Gathering the cherry crop at Winoria<. 



them are grown in Winona county. The reason why cherries are 

 not grown more all over the state is probably due to insufficient 

 knowledge of the requirements for successful growing. The last 

 wet seasons have taught more to the inexperienced cherry grower 

 about what kind of a location cherries want and under what condi- 

 tions they are successful than many books could teach them. In 

 many places where cherry orchards were planted on level and clay 

 soils they were wiped out entirely on account of excessive moisture 

 and fungous diseases, but, on the other hand, where the cherry 

 orchards had a natural drainage the excessive moisture was drained 

 off in no time from the surface and underground, and the trees 



