PROTECTION FROM DROUTH AND WINTERKILLING. 383 



Mr. W. L. Taylor : I had a good crop. 



Mr. L. R. Moyer : We have been told time and again to cease 

 cultivation the first of August, and your advice seems rather strange. 



Mr. W. L. Taylor: Late cultivation has produced the best 

 results with me with no ill effects. 



Mr. C. W. Merritt : Does the gentleman cut off the tips in 

 the fall ? 



Mr. G. D. Taylor : Yes, I cut them back. 



Mr. C. W. Merritt : We cut all of the red raspberries back 

 and also the black ones ; we think it gives the wood a chance to 

 ripen up and harden. 



Mr. Wyman Elliot : May I inquire what time you cut them 

 back? 



Mr. Merritt : Any time after the growing season is over, so 

 they will not have a chance to make a second growth. 



Mr. J. S. Trigg (Iowa) : In some parts of Oregon where there 

 is a hard subsoil extraordinary success has been attained by the 

 use of dynamite, even going so far where trees have been planted 

 on a soil of hard pan three or four feet in thickness and where trees 

 have been planted eight or nine years. They bore a hole in a slant- 

 ing direction toward the tree, getting far enough away so as not to 

 injure the tree, and then explode a charge of dynamite with the 

 greatest advantage to the tree. 



The President : At what time in the season do they do this ? 



Mr. J. S. Trigg: I cannot tell you just when it is done; prob- 

 ably in the spring of the year. Where we have a hard pan soil in 

 Minnesota and Iowa, for instance in the vicinity of Dubuque, they 

 put in a charge of dynamite and explode it, and they meet with ex- 

 cellent results where that kind of soil exists. 



A SUGGESTION IN CROSSING. 



EDSON GAVI^ORD, NORA SPRINGS. 



Would it not be a matter of sagacity and wisdom for those who 

 are working so hard and expecting so much and yet have succeeded 

 in securing so little to stop paying so much attention to crossing 

 in the blossom and look to the root. From various observations 

 taken in northern Iowa and in southern Minnesota I have been lead 

 to believe that if we would work our reform the surest and shortest 

 way, it might be by splitting the roots of two choice varieties and 

 uniting them, and when they are grown into one solid root get this 

 root to sprout. From such sprouts I am inclined to think we 

 would be much more liable to secure kinds that misfht take on the 



