328 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



mean total failure. They have gone into homes where the people 

 have scarcely enough to clothe and feed themselves, and they have 

 hypnotized them like a swarm of bees flying in military order, when 

 the people did not even know how to take care of the things they 

 bought, and we all know that trees and shrubs are not going to do 

 well unless they have the best care given them. But they have gone 

 to work and deliberately advocated the planting of these things, 

 and the people bought them. I saw seven or eight hundred trees 

 delivered, I saw farmers driving out to their homes miles in the 

 country carrying these trees with the roots exposed to the wind and 

 the air. They were planted, of course, but in a short time people 

 would wonder why these things did not grow. There are a great 

 many things to be taken into consideration in connection with this 

 business, but if the agent has character and will do as he would want 

 to be done by, will properly represent his goods to the people and 

 tell them how to take care of them, then we shall have reached the 

 ideal. (Applause.) 



Mr. O. J. Flagstad : I want to ask a question in this connection. 

 Is it not many times true that even the agent is misled? I do not 

 stick up for all kinds of agents — I know there are two kinds — but I 

 think in some instances even the agent himself is misled. I know of 

 one case where an agent came to sell stock in a certain locality from 

 a nursery which was claimed to have thousands of its own trees, 

 but which existed more on paper than in reality. The agent thought 

 he was acting in good faith and sold the stock to the farmers as 

 stock grown in the climate where it was to be planted. 



Of all the crops hastened by the use of hotbeds, perhaps onions 

 show the best results both as to early maturity of the crop and the 

 increased yield. Onion seed sown in the flats or in soil over the 

 manure in early March will produce plants large enough to set out 

 the first or second week in April. The young plants should not 

 be allowed to grow tall and spindling, but should be sheared or cut 

 back, taking about i inch of the tops oflf. 



If the season for planting out is late, this cutting-back may be 

 practiced more than once ; and at the time of planting into the 

 ground, the plants should be cut back so that the tops will remain 

 upright. In setting out, do not set the bulb deep, only enough to 

 hold the plant upright. Set the plants from 3 to 4 inches apart in 

 the rows, having the rows, if in a kitchen garden, 12 inches apart ; 

 if in a field crop, 18 inches between the rows. If the soil is in a 

 good moist condition at the time of setting the plants will take hold 

 at once of the soil and grow with great rapidity. 



After the hotbed has served the purpose of growing plants ^r 

 the garden, it may be used to grow plants of late cabbage or for the 

 main crop of celery. One other use to which it may be put is to 

 plant cucumber or melon seeds directly in the frames where they 

 may be protected. They will outgrow the frames before the sea- 

 son is over ; but as the hotbeds are usually in some out-of-way 

 corner, the vines will not be unsightly and the yield is usually 

 enormous. 



