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124 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
my experience in thinning that I am afraid to take off enough. This 
past summer I made the experiment of thinning the plums to about 
two inches apart, and it seemed to me I was taking off four-fifths of 
the crop, but at maturity the fruit was still too much crowded and 
the plums were undersized. The trees had overborne in previous 
years. 
I find that one difficulty in marketing the native plums is the way 
in which the wild plums are brought to market. They are brought 
in bushel baskets, washtubs and in every other slovenly manner. 
What we should do is to put up our plums in sucha nice way that 
they will not be compared with the wild plums, as they are usually 
sold, and so that they will sell on their merits. 
It seems to me the fruit growers of the Northwest will do well to 
propagate the best native plums for market asa market fruit. True, 
some of us are doing it already, and I think, perhaps, the average 
farmer who has a taste for fruit growing will be able to make more 
money from the best native plums than he can from apples or other 
tree fruits. I think the climate is not against us in growing the 
native plums. Ifthis is true, we need not bewail the fact that the 
northwest is not good for fruit. If there are some fruits we cannot 
grow we can afford to let them pass by and not whine and complain 
that the climate is such an enemy to us. I would not advise any 
one to go into plum culture extensively as yet. The large markets 
are not yet fully acquainted with the merits of the native plums. 
We will have to educate the people in our large cities to the merits 
of our native plums. Some of my correspondents have written that 
they find their best markets in the small towns and villages, where 
the people have been accustomed to wild plums and know their 
qualities. 
I will add, in conclusion, that I am now preparing a bulletin on 
this subject of native plums which I shall be happy to send to you 
all, when it is issued. 
AN EFFECTIVE REMEDY FOR CUTWORMS, especially on onions, is 
a mixture of one pound paris green with thirty pounds of dry bran 
and middlings in equal parts. This mixture can be distributed by 
means of an onion seed drill, and thus deposited evenly and contin- 
uously about the margins of the fields before the advancing de- 
stroyers. It forms a line of defense across which the worms will 
seldom pass without feasting to their death. If the worms become 
scattered over the fields, the dry bait can be applied quickly and 
uniformly alongside the rows by use of the drill. This treatment, 
says Bulletin 120, N. Y. Station, is fully as efficient as hand picking, 
is less expensive, and for onions, at least, is a very satisfactory de- 
fense against the cutworms. It can also be used successfully and 
with ease to protect cabbages, tomatoes, egg plants, sweet potatoes, 
strawberries and similar garden plants, by surrounding each, at 
time of transplanting, with a little of the poisoned mixture. 
