YOUR CORNER. 127 



We Cannot Grow Them but are Willing to Eat Them:— 

 "Have you ever eaten Japan Persitnmons? You have no idea of 

 their richness. Here our markets in winter are g^ay with these fiery 

 scarlet fruits, and their consumption is rapidly increasing-, for 

 many prefer them to any kind of fruit, tropical or otherwise. They 

 are also very ornamental and should be used in northern homes 

 for decorations. They will keep for weeks and when apparently 

 rotten and worthless are just in the condition to eat. I wanted to 

 send a lot to you for the annual meeting-, but kept putting it ofJ, as 

 I have so many things until too late." 



San Diego, Cal., Jan. 29, 1897. L. M. FORD. 



Severe for Fruit Trees— "At Windom the thermometer ranged 

 from 35° to 38° below, and I know that the terminal ends of some 

 fruit trees are now killed. I think our next mid-summer report can 

 be made valuable by reporting on the hardiness (by the knife test) 

 of the various varieties of fruit trees. The sleet storm we had early 

 in the winter destroyed or injured a great many trees here ; plums 

 suffered the most; but I am satisfied from previous experience and 

 from present observation that the eg;g of the tent caterpillar has 

 been nearly or quite destroyed by the ice. I ani in hopes that the 

 sleet storm destroyed the plum scale, including the San Jose scale, 

 provided we were so unfortunate as to have them." 



Windom, Feb. 3, 1897. Dewain COOK. 



Plum Pockets. — I have been engaged in plum growing- for the 

 last twenty-five or thirty years in Brown county, south-west Minne- 

 sota, and my observations are based on several years' experience 

 with plum pockets. If we have fair, dry weather during blossoming- 

 time, and pollenization has its full effects, and we have no frost, I 

 have never seen many plum pockets, but usually a big crop of 

 plums; if the weather is damp and changes to the freezing point 

 soon after blossoming time, we can look for a big crop of plum 

 pockets. Plum pocketsare a blessing to the Desota variety. 



I have examined plum pockets when they are fully matured, and 

 the whole skin is tough, and no holes in it, though in many I found 

 lice, something similar to the leaf lice. How they come in, in this 

 short time, is a puzzle to me. Martin Penning. 



Sleepy Eye., Feb. '97. 



Broom Handles Don't Grow.—" In the spring of 1895, 1 took one 

 hundred trees, four to five feet high, cut the limbs all off for scions, 

 covered the wounds with grafting wax and set them out to grow 

 scions from in the future. I took twelve and cut the roots off and 

 shortened the body, made a broom handle after the directions I 

 had seen— and set them in the middle of the row. They were 

 mulched heavily on one side with strawy manure and well cul- 

 tivated on the other side the first summer. The broom handles 

 were set one-half with a crowbar and one-half with a spade. The 

 past summer the trees were not looked after. A few daj'S ago I 

 hunted them out of the weeds and found the broom handles all dead; 



