394 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY, 
Ve 
There is a difference of opinion among us in regard to windbreak 
around an orchard. In my opinionit is the safeguard to fruit grow- 
ing, but I do not want it of willows or cottonwood unless at least five 
rods away from them. Some of our best trees and largest fruit 
grow within less than one rod of our evergreen hedge. 
As for pruning,I doit at any time of the year when going through 
the.orchard. If limbs cross I cut them off so they do not run to- 
gether, but if I want to doa heavy pruning to large trees I doitin 
the winter, so they will not bleed. 
As for girdling trees my experience differs from Mr. Dartt. I 
think it a dangerous experiment in an orchard, Years ago while in. 
the nursery business with A. W. Sias, and experimenting with every- 
thing like an apple we could get hold of, we frequently girdled 
three-year-old trees to see what kind of fruit they would bear; we 
would always get a few apples, but it was generally at the loss of 
the tree, as it was not salable afterwards, and frequently it would die. 
We found out that some varieties would live but be unsalable, while 
other varieties it would kill. I girdled a few trees in our orchard 
the 16th of last June, and there is not one that I girdled but isin 
jured by leaving a black or dead spot where I girdled. Some I en- 
tirely killed, and I learned the lesson that when we violate nature’s 
laws we must pay the penalty. If I had some old trees that would 
not bear fruit and did not care whether I killed them or not, I would 
girdle them, but a young orchard, never. It is a dangerous experi- 
ment. 
THE USES OF SHELTER BELTS. 
ALFRED TERRY, SLAYTON. 
The uses of shelter belts are manifold. Living as I have for 
twenty-six years on the prairies of southwestern Minnesota, I well 
remember when it was an unbroken wilderness, except that here 
and there were unsheltered farm buildings, whose very presence 
seemed to betoken misery and hardship. The cattle in winter were 
bow-backed and shaking, too cold to move about and too lean to ship 
to market; the pigs made audible remonstrance against the absence 
of shelter; the chickens staid on the roosts till noon to keep warm; 
the wooly sheep refused to bleat; the boys neglected much of their 
chores; while the farmer himself was driving to town for fuel, facing 
an unbroken wind from the northwest. Oh, think of it, that sharp, 
stinging, biting, freezing wind, made worse by the steady sweep of 
a drifting snow which had fallen a week before, but since been frozen 
and re-frozen till granulated finer than the desert sands, and com- 
bined with the wind and cold to multiply the misery of both man 
and team! Double clothing and fur overcoat and shoe packs bur- 
dened the body by their weight but failed to shelter it from the 
wintry blast. The picture is not overdrawn. The good wife had to 
chink with cloths the threshhold of the best made doorways and 
stuff the key holes with rags, and keep up a raging fire to save the 
children from suffering. 
I have often seen such a picture on the very spot where now stand 
the same buildings,with a few more added to them, and surrounded 
miles 
Ae aaa 
