292 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



PRUNING AND PLANTING TREES. 



A DISCUSSION. 



H. V. Poore : What shall we do to get the people interested ? 

 They don't care anything about it when they don't get an apple. I 

 do hope we can do something to give them some encouragement. 

 When they get hold of these things then they will do something in 

 return for their neighbors, and then will come the flowers and other 

 things of less practical utility; they will improve and ornament their 

 grounds, and they will look on another side besides that of dollars 

 and cents. It is a great pleasure to eat choice fruits, and it is those 

 that I produce myself that I value the most. But my neighbors 

 have not been as successful; they have been more intent upon pro- 

 ducing dollars and cents. We have a large state, we have a beau- 

 tiful state, we can make large and beautiful exhibits that will at- 

 tract attention all over the country; we can find them all over the 

 state, but you go to a farmer's house and there is no fruit on the 

 table, but instead he buys his fruit in town. We should try to find 

 out where the mistake has been made in telling the farmers how to 

 do it. I have heard them say not to cut off any branches, but it is 

 just as well to cut the branches all off. If you don't cut off the 

 branches the tree may start well, but the wind will come along and 

 blow it over. When I plant trees I cut off all the branches and 

 make a stick of it, and I have beautiful trees. 



Mr. S. D. Richardson: I have lived in Minnesota since 1856, 

 and I have had some experience in tree planting. I used to live in 

 Martin county, and on the farm where I lived there is a large 

 grove. It is just as I said yesterday, one man will say one thing, 

 and another man will contradict it. This man cuts off everything, 

 while I have set out thousands of trees without cutting off a limb, 

 and I have been as successful in tree planting as any man in Minne- 

 sota. I have set out thousands of trees. There is a right way and 

 a wrong way of doing things. One man will do one thing and 

 half do it, and another man will do a thing and do it right. When 

 I lived out there in Martin county I bought fifty apple trees, and 

 I hired a man to set them out for me. He wanted me to show him 

 how. I told him anybody could set out trees. He dug a little hole 

 with the spade, and how he managed to dig so small a hole with 

 that spade is a mystery to me yet, but when I found him he had 

 rolled the roots all together and was going to stick the tree into 

 that little hole. I could not tell what the result would have been. 

 That June the grasshoppers broke loose, and they ate everything 

 that came in their way. In the fall I did not have any apple trees 

 to amount to anything. 



