348 MINNESOTA STATE HOETICULTUKAL SOCIETY, 



pressure on the heel of the stem you want to keep it there until the 

 plant is covered. This machine does it, and there is no let up at all. 

 The pressure comes on steady and gradual, and the bush is covered 

 before it has any chance to rise. I have been covering berries for a 

 good many years. I think I was the first one to start in our neigh- 

 borhood, and I know by experience that the breakage is a great deal 

 more by hand work than by machine work. You take a forkful of 

 dirt and throw it on. the hill, and if you are not very careful to lay 

 it on instead of throwing it on, you will break the vines, and if you 

 cover with the plow after they are tipped down the pressure is on 

 one side of the stems and the pressure is sideways and downwards, 

 and thus the breakage amounts to a great deal more than it does 

 where the machine is used. When you get a pressure down and 

 forward the berries will be covered. In this machine there is a tin 

 funnel that runs over the bushes and bends them down. The funnel 

 is about twenty-six inches at the large end and about seven inches at 

 the small end, and the bushes have no chance to get from under 

 until they are covered. There is another thing, when you cover by 

 hand the pressure is back all the time when you tip the bushes down, 

 but with the machine pressure is forward. That is the way it should 

 be, — the pressure should be forward. You will find there is less 

 breakage when the pressure is forward than when it is backward or 

 sidewise. As I said before, this machine does nice work when the 

 conditions are right. 



Mr. Kellogg: Do you use two plows in covering? 



Mr. Plants : Yes, we use a right and left hand plow. 



Mr. Page: I want to add a word to what Brother Plants has 

 said. He covered three and one-half acres of fruit at my place and 

 left before three o'clock. The work of the machine might be more 

 perfect, perhaps, and yet it did the work so nicely that I think I 

 have the finest job of covering berries I ever saw. 



The President : The greatest trouble I have found in covering 

 berries is to get the arch a few inches from where they leave the 

 ground covered. In some of our reports I have seen the advice 

 given to cover the tips only and never mind the lower end. I have 

 found that the tips will come out alive in the spring, but everything 

 will be killed back where that arch was not covered deeply enough. 

 How does the machine work in that regard ? 



Mr. Plants : That has been my experience. Where the work is 

 done by hand the arch keeps rising a little higher each time, and as 

 I said before, whether the work is done by hand or whether you plow 

 the bushes under, it is a hard matter to get the arch covered suffi- 

 ciently. If it is covered with a little dirt the wind is apt to blow it 

 off. The arch should be covered all the time to prevent thawing and 

 freezing, and, as the president has said, the tips will be green but the 

 arch will be dead. There is no arch to stick up if the bushes are 

 covered with the machine. 



Mr. A. A. Bost : I went over to Long Lake to see the work. I 

 did not see the machine, but it is the best and neatest work of cov- 

 ering I ever saw. The bending does not seem to hurt the bushes. 



Mr. Wright : Can you work with one team ? 



Mr. Plants : No ; it takes four horses. 



