268 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Melons need careful cultivating, and a choice of kinds here 

 is important. The Gem and Osage are desirable because of a 

 smooth skin that does not catch disease spores as readily as others 

 that are rough. The Osage ought to be raised in hotbeds and 

 transplanted. An easy way is to use the oblong quart berry box, 

 set close together in the bed, and four or five seed planted in each. 

 Break to pieces as you plant out. They ought to be three weeks 

 earlier handled in this way. 



An easy way to handle the striped and big black squash bug 

 when they are bad is to have a gasoline blow torch, such as elec- 

 tricians use. Use a small pan to drop over the hill when the 

 swarm is on, and you get them all as they come out and very 

 quickly too. 



Don't forget to put in plenty of radish, lettuce, spinach and 

 onion sets in August for late fall use, and a few sash of lettuce 

 put in the hotbeds goes nice along Thanksgiving time. 



If one raises this truck for sale, the greatest problem on his 

 hands is to how best to dispose of it. The new laws allowing^ 

 people to sell their own truck in the cities to private customers 

 helps out the truck man immensely. The people want it fresh 

 from us and have no special love for the middleman, and every 

 hour's delay makes that much poorer truck. But this is too big 

 a subject to speak on in the time allotted. 



Mr. Brackett : The gentleman spoke of saving seed, saying that 

 two-year-old seed is the best. Is there not an exception. How is 

 it about celery and onion seed ? 



Mr. Baldwin: Celery seed ought to be good for three years. 

 Any one growing vegetables ought to be familiar with the longevity 

 of seeds. We know that cucumber, squash and melon seeds are 

 better when two years old. I have used tomato seed two years 

 old that was much safer. Radish are good for two years, and peas 

 are good for two years, and there are only a few varieties of seed 

 that you cannot depend upon. You cannot depend upon onions and 

 parsnips. If you are familiar with seedsmen, if you have some 

 friend among them to tell you just how old the seed is when you 

 buy it it will be of great advantage to you. 



Mr. Husser: We had a little experience, and I want to say a 

 few words about the seed business. They send out some good 

 seed, but they do not try it sufficiently to know what it is. Now in 

 the case of onions, a person becomes awfully disappointed to get 

 some seed and sow a lot and then have it fail, because it is too late 

 to replant it. The best way to do is to take a hundred seeds and 

 plant them in a box in February, and when they come up you can 

 tell about what percentage will sprout, and you can regulate your 

 seeder accordingly. If many germinate I would sow thin, and if only 

 a small percentage I would sow thicker. I have received onion 



