THE ORCHARDS OF SOUTHWESTERN MINNESOTA 369 



season confidence in orcharding has steadily increased and the 

 products enlarg-ed, leads the lay members of your committee to 

 combat the theory of our worthy president, that with us drought is 

 the worst enemy of the apple, and that with sufficient moisture 

 present in the soil a low temperature is not to be dreaded. 



It is in this part of the state that several very interesting novelties 

 and new varieties have originaled, especially among the stone fruits. 

 Several of these we were able to see and report upon, as well as some 

 very interesting forms of native trees and shrubs, which appear 

 worthy of propagation. 



We found the honey locust, which is. now attracting some atten- 

 tion as a hedge plant, at a number of places, one particularly inter- 

 esting at Luverne, where it was planted as a border around a quarter 

 of a block in the city, about twenty years ago, and gave a most ex- 

 cellent and typical example of its behavior in this climate. About 

 one plant in thirty was standing in good health and had grown to 

 nearly twenty feet high, the other twenty-nine were in various stages 

 of decay and death, the size of the dead trees left standing showing 

 that they had died at different periods, and that, like the catalpa, 

 they differ widely in hardiness, even when grown from the same 

 seed tree. 



The white willow, which has for so many years done yeoman 

 service as the pioneer windbreak, is suffering severely from the 

 willow worm, more properly the saw fly, and we found fully three- 

 fourths of these useful windbreaks as bare of leaves as in January. 

 Where these groves are enclosed within the hog pasture, little injury 

 is done, as swine are very fond of the cocoons which are found in 

 the ground, but as this is not a generally practiced method of com- 

 batting this insect, and as the willow is a most valuable and almost 

 indispensible tree for the prairies, some effort should be made to 

 save the trees by a method that will be given in our detailed report. 



We return from this trip with the profound conviction that south- 

 western Minnesota is par excellence the orchard region of our state, 

 and that we should do all possible to encourage its full development 

 in this direction. 



Summer Care of Window Plants.— In most of our large cities, 

 in the spring, hucksters make the streets beautiful with wagon 

 loads of pot plants. Their sales are always large, even in the tene- 

 ment house districts. For a week or two thousands of windows are 

 lovely with color, but after a week nearly every plant is dead, and 

 the dry pots are only signs of departed glory. Plants in pots on 

 on window sills and fire escapes cannot stand the heat and drouth, 

 the dry, parching wind and the glare from brick walls. The almost 

 total absence of flowers in city homes in warm weather could be 

 prevented in part with a little care. A flower pot is porous. It will 

 dry out the soil held in it quicker and more effectively than any- 

 thing ever invented. Exposed to the sun and air, a flower pot is 

 simply a sponge for sucking water out of the soil. To prevent this 

 excessive evaporation, the pot should be placed in a box or in an- 

 other pot, and the empty space between them stuffed with moss. 

 Keep this wet all the time and the plant will live and grow. Water 

 is the secret of city house planting in summer. The plants must 

 not stand in water, but the soil must be protected from wind and 

 sun and kept moist at all times. It is not heat that kills, but drying 

 w^inds. 



