256 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY, 
for the same reason that the Fameuse applethrives in Canada but is 
a rank failure in South Dakota. From this data, the sooner we give 
up the idea that it is our cold winter alone that kills our trees, the 
sooner will our prairies be dotted with orchards and plantations. 
Another drawback has been the lack of cultivation, both before 
and after planting. We have a very hard subsoil, loosening of 
which manifestly aids the tree planter. In an experiment at the 
College Stationas to the behavior of the roots of seedling trees with _ 
ordinary culture oron sub-soiled land, it was fully demonstrated that 
there was a great advantage to be had by subsoiling. Many grow- 
ers have found it beneficial to give complete culture to the orchards 
and never seed them to grass or clover, for as soon as the grass once 
gets started the trees cease to grow. Probably the hardest question 
to solve is the one of late spring frosts. It has been estimated that 
the crop of {897 was reduced 90 per cent. by the frosts the latter part 
of May. It seems almost an impossibility to pile up enough brush 
straw and etc. to keep the temperature above freezing for a period 
of three or four nights in succession, but, nevertheless, many of our 
most successful men are doing this. 
Until recently our orchards have been comparatively free from 
blight, but last year seems to have been a bad year, for out of fifty 
varieties of mostly Russian apples snd crabs the Shields crab was 
the only one that was perfectly free. The Marthaand Duchess were 
only slightly affected, while the Early Strawberry and Transcendent 
crabs were so badly used up that it was found advisable to remove 
the trees bodily from the orchard. 
During the past five years the jack rabbits have been increasing 
so rapidly as to cause no little alarm as to how we are to protect our 
orchards. It is not an uncommon thing to see them running in 
droves of from fifty to one hundred and fifty. As yet they are not 
doing the damage that the wood, or cotton-tail, rabbits are doing, 
because they do not burrow under the snow, but rather prefer the 
young, tender shoots which project above the snow, and are espe- 
cially fond of one year old trees. The average farmer will be able 
to protect his few trees from rabbits by means of wire netting or 
laths and wire, which will serve also as a protection to the stems of 
the trees from sunscald. 
Aside from the apple, other fruits have met with similar draw- 
backs. In parts of our state,and more especially along the Missouri 
river, are thickets of wild plums of the yellow and red varieties. They 
are, of course, hardy and adapted to the climate, except where the 
trees have been pruned very high, in which cases the stems have 
become sunscalded, which is, common in all orchards where the 
trees have not been headed very low. Scattered over the state area 
few very creditable plum orchards grown from pits and trees 
obtained along the river. 
The Buffalo berry (Sheperdia argentia) and sand cherry (Prunus 
pumila)are both being cultivated, with the expectation of developing 
palatable fruit from them. 
Strawberries have done fairly well where they have had a reason- 
able amount of care, but too many people take care of them during 
