340 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



On our prairie soil they have died during the last three j^ears very 

 badly. 



Pres. Underwood: What is your best evergreen? 



Mr. Kellogg: We hav'nt got any. (Laughter). 



Prof. N. E. Hansen, (South Dakota): With us, in South Dakota, the 

 Scotch pine and white spruce are the best. 



Mr. M. Pearce: I want to report my experience for the last fifteen 

 year with the red pine. At first I thought the red pine was to be 

 really a wonderful success; it seemed to be a perfect success winter 

 and summer; but during the last two years t have changed my 

 mind. My finest trees have entirely died out. I regard them in our 

 very dry seasons in the western portion of our country an entire 

 failure. I am sorry to report it as a fact. I want to say a word in 

 reference to the growth of apple trees close by evergreens. My 

 earliest planting of Wealthy apple trees, top-worked on the crab, 

 w^ere planted right under white pine, and every other year those 

 trees are literally loaded with apples, and I remember seeing on 

 Mr. Peffer's ground just such an example where they were bearing 

 very finely, and Mr. Pefifer said that was their history. So I believe 

 apple trees may be planted very close to evergreens without any 

 bad results. 



Mr. Philips: Those apple trees of Mr. Peffer's have given up the 

 ghost and the evergreens are in possession. 



Mr. C. G. Patten (Iowa): In regard to putting fruit trees near ever 

 green and other trees: I have tried that with evergreens, and it does 

 very well. The first thing I did, I put out a row of apple trees, and a 

 few years later I put out a hedge of Russian mulberry trees and made 

 quite a hedge around the apple trees. Those have been out four- 

 teen or fifteen years, and the mulberry trees and apple trees have 

 kept pace with each other, and those apple trees have been loaded 

 every year. They are the Wealthy and Whitney. My observation 

 from that little experience is that if I were going to put out an 

 orchard on the prairie, I would put in something like the Russian 

 mulberry. They do not sap the ground, and they are not going to be 

 a very big tree, and it has a wonderful influence on the apple trees. 

 I believe if I were to set out an orchard I would set every other tree 

 a mulberry. The tops kill easily, but they come right up again. It 

 is something worth trying. In regard to evergreens: I set out ten 

 years ago a thousand evergreens not more than nine or ten inches 

 high. I had no difficulty with them, I did not lose one of them. I 

 had the Norway spruce, the white spruce and balsam fir, and they 

 all did remarkably well. I began when they were a couple of feet 

 high, and I kept right on until they were fifteen feet high, and then 

 they would come from around the lake and get them to plant; and 

 one man took twenty and transplanted them, and he never lost one 

 of them. If I had put out two thousand of those evergreens and 

 cultivated them as I did that thousand, it would have been worth 

 ten thousand dollars right to the lake. Those trees that gave the 

 best satisfaction were the Norway spruce and the blue spruce. 

 One man took twenty of them and never lost one. I think the 

 white spruce for general planting is very hardy; at the same time 

 the Norway spruce, as a general rule, seems to be a wonderful tree. 



