46 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
good hardy stock on which to work them that it would be a great improve- 
ment over our present method of growing them, which is by grafting them 
either upon apple stocks or upon French seedling pear stocks. On the 
former, they do not make a very strong growth, and the latter is too tender. 
We have raised the past year several hundred seedlings of Pryrus betulifolia, 
which we have obtained as a stock from the Arnold Arboretum, and we shall 
watch the development of them with much interest; but owing to some pre- 
vious experience with a similar form of this we are disposed to doubt its be- 
ing of much value for us here. 
The plum stocks that have been tried here consist of seedlings of P. 
Americanus and P. myrobolan, and the stocks commonly known as “Mari- 
ana,’ which are grown from cuttings. Of these different stocks the Ameri- 
canus have proved by far the most satisfactory, as on them our trees make a 
vigorous growth, are not disposed to sucker very freely, and the stocks are 
perfectly hardy. The myrobolan stock is rather too tender for us here, and I 
think does not make as good a union with our native plums as native species, 
although some trees have done fairly well on it. 
DISEASES AND INSECTS ESPECIALLY AFFECTING DHE 
APPLES.—Among the insects that are becoming quite injurious to the 
apples here is the codlin moth. This moth lays its eggs on the fruit during 
the latter part of the spring and early summer, and the insects bore into the 
fruit, causing it either to fall off or ripen prematurely, making what is com- 
monly known as ‘‘wormy apples.” When our orchards first came into 
bearing here, we had scarcely any trouble from this insect; but during the 
last few years it has increased very much, and is now quite troublesome, and 
it will probably be necessary for us to take some means of holding it in 
check. 
The tent caterpillar has occasionally been somewhat injurious in our 
orchards, but a little attention has prevented our having any serious trouble 
from this cause. Our best remedy has been the destroying of the egg clus- 
ters, which may be easily seen in the branches in winter and early spring, 
and in gathering the worms in the tents as soon as they hatch out. 
In seasons when fire blight is prevalent in this section, we seem to have 
rather more than our share of it, and yet by cutting the blight off we seem 
to have stopped it from spreading rapidly, and we have been able to keep it 
in check, and our orchards quite free from serious injury from this cause. 
Sun scald we have avoided nearly entirely, except in the case of those 
trees that are especially liable to sun scald in the branches. We have done 
this by protecting the trunks and the large branches from the sun. Our 
chief method of doing this is by tying corn stalks upon the south and west 
sides of the tree each autumn. These corn stalks are generally taken off in 
the summer, although there is no special need of doing so except that the 
trees look more tidy with them removed. We have also used wood veneers, 
which are thin pieces of cottonwood, or similar wood, which when thor- 
oughly soaked in water will bend around the trunks of the trees. These 
pieces of wood are held in place by a small piece of wire, and have proven 
quite satisfactory. We have also used wire mosquito netting and burlap for 
this purpose. We have found that boxing up the trunks of the trees not only 
prevents sun scald and injury from mice, and to a large extent from rab- 
bits, but that it seems to make the trees much more hardy. I think this 
is due to the fact that the trunk being well protected, and the foliage of the 
