320 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



breakfast down here in Wisconsin, when we are after curculio. The 

 early bird is always slumbering^, and even the worm is still abed 

 when we get at work with sheet and mallet. After a few years of 

 this sort of thing, one does not relish being made to say that brim- 

 stone, Paris green and tobacco are sufficient. Further, I am totally 

 unacquainted with Dewain and Purple Gage plums, and the list 

 reported under my name is entirely incorrect. Will you kindly 

 make this correction?" — Frederic Cranefield. 

 Some one said it, and I thought it was Mr. Cranefield. — J. M. U. 



Chemistry of the Soils and Fertilizers.— By Prof. Harry 

 Snyder. — A little book of 275 pages with the above title has just been 

 issued by Prof. Snyder, professor of chemistry at the Minnesota 

 College of Agriculture, primarily, it appears, for use in his class- 

 room in teaching, as he expresses it in his preface, " the principles 

 of chemistry which have a bearing upon the conservation of soil 

 fertility and the economic use of manures." 



This book is divided into chapters as to general subjects, and these 

 subdivided into paragraphs, each one being headed with a few 

 words in black-faced type indicating the topic treated upon therein. 

 While each paragraph is a link in the chain of the subject matter 

 treated of in the chapter, yet the w '•iter, in running over the book 

 and reading one here and there, found each one practically a 

 finished and concise treatise in itself and not one so technical as 

 not to be of sufficient interest to desire to complete its reading 

 and get the whole of the thought it conveyed. 



The book is intensely practical. It can be read continuously or 

 by selecting at a glance by the aid of a full index and the headlines 

 referred to the subject it is desired to investigate. Any agricul- 

 turist or horticulturist who is interested in knowing how to select 

 and care for the soil and " the way of it," will find the price of the 

 book, $1.50, an excellent investment. In size and general appearance 

 this work is a very good counterpart of that issued on " Vegetable 

 Gardening" by Prof. S. B. Green, of the same school, and should 

 have a place beside it in the library of every practical cultivator of 

 the soil. 



A Good Shipping Crate.— To make a bushel shipping crate 

 for holding vegetables, fruits, etc., get inch boards 10 inches wide 

 and 10 to 12 feet long. Saw these up into pieces one foot long for 

 end pieces. Secure plastering laths, which are exactly 4 feet long, 

 and saw them in two in the middle. Use these for the sides and bot- 

 tom of the box, putting six on each side, five on the top and five on 

 the bottom, making 22 in all. You will then have a box two feet long, 

 one foot wide and ten inches high. If you are to ship to a distant 

 market, saw one lath into four pieces and nail four of these on each 

 end, over the ends of the slats which form the sides. This strength- 

 ens the crate considerably. These boxes can be piled up in wagon 

 loads or on cars, and are easily handled, and the purchaser can see 

 just exactly what kind of fruit he is getting. They should not cost 

 more than five or ten cents each. — O. J. Farmer. 



