284 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



to entomology, but he published many interesting things in botany. 

 He had made a mounted collection of wild animals and birds with 

 notes showing the relation of each to plant production. 



The many kind and complimentary things which have been said 

 about Dr. Lugger in the newspapers of the state, in private con- 

 versation and in public meetings since his death are very gratifying 

 to the doctor's friends. It has made us all realize what a hold he 

 had on the popular mind of the people among whom he worked. 



WiLLET M. Hays. 



SOME LESSONS OF THE YEAR 1900. 



J. S. HARRIS, I.A CRESCENT. 



(Read at late meeting of the Southern Minnesota Horticultural So- 

 ciety, in November, 1900.) 



At the early opening of last spring (1900) there was a brilliant 

 prospect for a very large crop of fruit in Minnesota of all kinds that 

 can be made to succeed in this climate, but in some respects the 

 promise has not been fulfilled. The previous winter had been a com- 

 paratively mild one, and trees and plants with few exceptions had 

 received little if any perceptible injury from cold, and those excep- 

 tions were either from root-killing in bleak and unsheltered posi- 

 tions where the ground was bare from snow the greater part of the 

 winter and no artificial protection was given, or with trees that were 

 blackened or so nearly killed in the winter of 1898-9 that they did 

 not start into growth until very late in the season and the growth 

 was soft and unripened. Such growth was injured by the first frost 

 of the autumn, and such of the trees as did not come out dead in 

 the spring have still a very sorry appearance and are only fit to fur- 

 nish breeding places for insects and diseases. The lesson in this 

 case is that such badly winter-killed trees had better be taken out, 

 root and branch, and burned, providing they are old trees, but if they 

 are young trees with good healthy roots they may be cut off at the 

 surface of the ground and sprouts allowed to grow, thinning to one 

 sprout after the first year. I have adopted this practice with the 

 Fameuse, Utter, Walbridge and Wealthy that were killed back in the 

 winter of 1884-5 with excellent results, having fine trees of those va- 

 rieties that have fruited well for the past few years. These varieties 

 root very freely from the scion above the stock and near the sur- 

 face of the ground, and the sprouts are generally from the graft and 

 come true to nature. Ben Davis, Wine Sap, Northern Spy and 

 many other varieties treated in the same manner have not proved 



I 



