200 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
garden plants can be set out even after they have started quitea lit- 
tle, if much care is used. 
If you have some of the newer kinds of suckering raspberries that 
you wish to increase rapidly, it is a good plan to take up the suckers 
that come from the roots early in the spring when about four inches 
high and set them carefully in rows in moist soil,and they will 
make avery good growth by autumn and become just the nicest 
kind of plants to set next year. 
By the middle of the month, itis often safe to plant in the open 
ground the tropical vegetables, such as squash, cucumbers, melons 
and beans, although nothing is gained by so doing if the ground is 
not warni, and it may be best to wait ten days longer. Corn is gen- 
erally planted by the middle of May,and in early seasons itisa 
good plan to venturea little of some very early kind during the 
first week. Peas should be planted for succession, and cabbage and 
cauliflower for autumn and winter use. 
The first of the month is a good time to start melons in frames or 
hotbeds. Do not crowd the tomatoes and do not set them out too 
early—better not get them out until after the first of June. If set 
out so early that they are frozen off, and you still have a few left in 
frames, remember that you can double the quantity that you have 
in the frames by cutting off about six inches of the top and treating 
the cuttings the same as gernanium cuttings. 
Iflate frost comes as the potatoes are pushing out of the ground, 
plow a furrow directly over them, covering them up with soil. 
The plum curculio will make its appearance shortly after the fruit 
is set, and, while it has been recommended to use spraying mix- 
tures for them, yet, so faras I have been able to ascertain, they are 
all of them unsafe, and the best remedy is jarring the trees once a 
day or once in two days early in the morning and catching the bee- 
tles when they fall onto the sheet. This can be done quite easily, 
and it takes but little time. 
The tent caterpillar will make its appearance just as the leaves 
begin to unfold. I notice there are quite a number of their egg 
clusters in the branches of our plum trees. If they are watched a 
little, it is a small matter to destroy them before they have done any 
harm, but better still to destroy the eggs; very often they are allow- 
ed to grow until they have made much growth and are conspicu- 
ous and are then destroyed, but it isa mistake to let them have their 
own way so long. 
It is as true with the plum lice, or aphis, about getting at them 
early as with the curculio and tent caterpillar; and if the trees are 
watched and sprayed with tobacco water and kerosene emulsion on 
the first appearance of the aphis this insect can generally be kept 
in check without much trouble, while if allowed to increase until 
they become very numerous it is almost impossible to destroy them 
by these means, 
