226 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



and then follow it again when the fruit enlarges. I am not giving 

 this of my own knowledge, but from observation and what I learned 

 in talks with fruit growers. 



Mr. Underwood : I wish Mr. Howard were here. He has a 

 brother at Grand Haven, ]\Iichigan, who is in the fruit growing busi- 

 ness, raising peaches and pears, and I read a letter to him last 

 spring from his brother telling him what to do about spraying, and he 

 says in that letter he uses the Bordeaux mixture for spraying early 

 before the buds are set, then he says spray after the buds are open, 

 then he puts in a small part of Paris green and makes an arsenical 

 solution, and he claims that is the time to kill insects, that is the time 

 when it should be done. I followed his instructions, in fact. I got 

 out a little printed circular giving the instructions contained in his 

 letter. I have been criticised some for doing that because they told 

 me there was danger of injuring the blossom, burning it. in some 

 way injuring it, and the tree would not produce as well. I sprayed 

 mine this year that way, and it did not kill or injure the blossoms of 

 apples or plums. 



Mr Corbett : You sprayed with a milder solution and probably 

 the others sprayed with a more concentrated solution that injured 

 the blossoms. 



Mr. Underwood : I do not want to advocate it. 



HORTICULTURAL METHODS IN NEW MEXICO. 



Chas. F. Gardner, Osage, la. 

 (Written from Santa Fe, New Mexico, where Mr. Gardner is stop- 

 ping for his health.) 

 A person who is familiar with and has visited the orchards, 

 fruit and market gardens of Minnesota, Iowa and other states 

 and has observed the skill and energy displayed by a great ma- 

 jority of those people who are engaged in this line of work, who 

 use up to date tools and all modern appliances for properly carry- 

 ing it on, who do all the work possible with horses attached to 

 plows, cultivators, harrows, etc., who use tools adapted to shallow 

 or deep cultivation, as may be required, can, I am sorry to say, 

 learn very little by traveling through this section of country. Too 

 much of the slipshod methods of ancient times are visible wherever 

 you go. Instead of finding modern tools predominating on the 

 Mexican ranches — and on many that are not Mexican — you will 

 find in use a plow that belonged to some past geological age or 

 ages, and a ponderous Mexican hoe that has undergone few 

 changes since the time of Montezuma. Add to these historic im- 

 plements the grub-hoe, a pickaxe and an occasional case where an 

 iron rake may be found, and you have a complete inventory of their 

 stock in tool's for tilling the soil. In harvesting their grain, they 

 cut it with that ancient but honored tool called the sickle, such 

 as was used in the days of that good old prophet, Abraham. They 

 thresh it on a threshing floor after the manner described in Holy 

 Writ, except they use goats or sheep instead of oxen. 



