468 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



blow the past winter, for many unprotected plantations escaped with 

 as little harm as others that were well protected. There is a great 

 dang-er that this unique example will be wrongly interpreted, and 

 that many will make it an excuse for omiting protection in the 

 future. But we should remember that it is not the severe cold that 

 is usually most damaging to the canes of the rubus fruits, but 

 rather the alternate freezing and thawing to which they are exposed 

 in comparatively mild weather. It is the experience of many ex- 

 tensive Wisconsin growers that it pays to protect the raspberry and 

 blackberry, even in comparatively mild winters. 



Should root-injured trees be sold? This is a practical question, 

 and one which, it seems to me, admits of an easy answer. The in- 

 jury generally proceeds from the tips of the roots backward. If 

 only the fibrous roots are killed, the trees may be transplanted with 

 as much safety as if no injury had occurred, for the fibrous roots 

 are mostly sacrificed in transplanting by our present systems. It 

 would be better for the tree if the fibrous root could be saved, for 

 the roots, if in a healthy condition, should be alive to the tips. But 

 I do not know that it is much worse to have the smaller roots frozen 

 off, than to have them cut off with the spade or digging machine. 

 I think as much harm may result from digging healthy roots after 

 they have commenced growth in spring, as from a moderate amount 

 of damage by freezing in the soil. But trees that show damaged 

 roots after they are dug should certainly not be sold as sound 

 stock. 



What of the future? Shall those of our nurserymen that find 

 themselves cleaned out of fruit stock continue to plant? I spent 

 some hours looking over a nursery in southern Wisconsin with the 

 proprietor, and after seeking in vain for a single fruit tree that had 

 a live root, he surprised me by saying, " I believe that this spring 

 is the time to plant heavily of nursery stock." While I was surprised, 

 I think he was quite right. The demand for nursery stock has not 

 been root-killed, and winters like the past are certainly not coming 

 every year, though they are liable to come any year. We should 

 profit as much as possible by the experience and be better pre- 

 pared for it next time. Root-killing is probably not so rare an 

 occurrence as some suppose. Probably more or less of it occurs 

 every winter when the ground is bare for any considerable time, 

 but so long as it affects only the fibrous roots it is often unobserved. 

 Many nurserymen suppose that the death of the fibrous roots in 

 winter is an annual occurrence, but this is probably an error. In 

 the spring of 1898, after a remarkably mild winter for Wisconsin, I 

 examined the roots of nearly all of the trees and shrubs commonly 

 grown in the nurseries of our state and failed to find a single in- 

 stance in which any large part of the root-tips were dead. The 

 spring just past, I again examined the roots of many of the same 

 species, and found that in only a few of them did the root growth 

 start from the tips. Indeed, the only case found of a fruit tree that 

 started growth from the tip was a single specimen of the Whitney 

 crab. Several roots of the Virginia crab were found to have started 

 growth very close to the tip, but in no case examined were the root 



