OWATONNA TRIAL STATION. 63 
for four years in succession, and is now in healthy condition, while Rich- 
land Winter always kills with one girdling. No variety having a good repu- 
tation for hardiness and not subject to bark blight has been permanently in- 
jured by a reasonable amount of seasonable girdling. 
The manner of girdling is not very essential so long as the cambium 
layer is cut through entirely around the tree. Girdling by the spiral method, 
which seems least harmful, is accomplished by starting in with a saw just 
below the limb and cutting down around the tree at an angle of forty-five de- 
grees. On small trees and limbs a knife may be used. I have used pruning 
shears to advantage. I now use the tree girdler made on the principal of 
shears. The blades are four or five inches long bent in a little at the ends 
to hook on to the tree. The handles are like those of blacksmith’s tongs; 
the blades are sharp and if bent an inch or two apart at the ends trees may 
be girdled spirally in a very expeditious manner. Since trees may be ex- 
pected to bear the next season aiter the girdling is done, it follows that if 
we remove the fruit from part of our orchard trees and girdle, we may rea- 
sonably expect the girdled trees to iruit the following season. May we not 
in this way bridge over the off year? Much girdling was done in 1898, and 
in 1899, in spite of tramps, hoodlums, the hard winter and the off year, I 
was able to exhibit at our state fair over 150 varieties, several of which were 
new seedling apples of great promise. For this latitude I think the first of 
July about the best time to girdle. If it is done too early, the wounds heal 
over quickly without results, if too late, there will be greater danger of per- 
manent injury. On young trees thus forced into bearing, the apples are 
likely to be considerably below the natural size. We have no way of dis- 
tinguishing the apple from the crab except by size, and I am pleased to note 
that some varieties that I placed in the crab list last year I am obliged to 
transfer to the apple list this year on account of increased size. If this in- 
crease shall be maintained we may reasonably expect many good sized ap- 
ples to develop from our very large crab list. Mr. Gideon claimed that the 
Wealthy was the product of Cherry crab seed, and I have some good sized 
apples' growing where crab seed was planted. It has been my custom to re- 
graft the most promising new varieties each year, so that if any proved valu- 
able I would have scions for distribution, and I am pleased to say that I 
have scions of this class now ready for our Minnesota experimenters and 
nurserymen. 
SAUK RAPIDS TRIAL STATION. 
MRS. JENNIE STAGER, SUPT. 
Although this year was a gocd year for growing fruit, it was not a good 
year for ripening here. We planted about three hundred fruit trees, also 
some butternut trees, and they grew nicely, but this fall the warm weather 
has caused the most of them to begin to bud out, which I am afraid will 
weaken them or perhaps even kill them. Grapes fruited heavily, but with 
the exception of some early varieties none ripened. 
The Scotch pine seedlings you sent a few years ago are many of them 
over six feet high, while the Colorado blue spruce are not two feet high. 
Turner raspberries are very large and fine here, and the Yellow Queen 
has as large a berry as the Cuthbert and of a nice flavor. 
Small fruits, with the exception of strawberries, did very poorly here 
this year, as the vines were weakened on account of losing their leaves 
