100 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



fed and planted a long distance apart; and being- so closely planted 

 they exclude the sunlight; and my experience is that the fruit is not 

 nearly so abundant as on trees of the same age that are consider- 

 ably isolated. 



WINDBREAKS. 



Mr. C. G. Patten: In reference to windbreaks, Mr. Sonierville did 

 not tell us how far away from the orchard his windbreaks are, and 

 that I regard as a very important point in talking about windb reaks 

 around an orchard. If the windbreak is to be planted close to an 

 orchard, or if the orchard is a small one and surrounded on all sides 

 by trees, my experience is that it is very detrimental to the orchard. 

 A successful orchard cannot be grown on a very sheltered place. 

 If windbreaks are planted a distance away, ten to fifteen rods, then I 

 would agree to surround the orchard with a windbreak; other than 

 that I should prefer not to have any at all. 



Mr. Somerville: As far as the windbreak around my orchard ia 

 concerned, my orchard is on the opposite side of the road from my 

 house, and then I have a row of evergreens close to the orchard 

 right along the line of that road, and the trees are within two or 

 three rods of that windbreak on the west and on the south, but on 

 the north they are not so close; neither is the windbreak so thick on 

 the north side as it is on the west and south, and the trees do not 

 appear to do so well against that windbreak — they do not bear fruit 

 so well. But yet I found this, in that hard winter of 1883-4, where I 

 had my trees set in rows they killed out away from the windbreak; 

 and some of those that stood close to the windbreak are bearing 

 fruit today. 



As far as close planting is concerned, I think Mr. Keel has been 

 very successful. Mr. Harris has seen his orchard. I do not think 

 I ever saw an orchard in my life as fine as his, and I think Prof. 

 Green will bear me out in that, and so will Mr. Harris, and they are 

 ' only eight feet apart along the row and ten feet in the row, and I 

 have never seen better crops than he gets. A year ago last fall, he 

 sold 3,000 bushels of apples. 



Mr. Harris: Mr. President, I believe if we ever calculate to make 

 orcharding a success on these broad prairies, we have got to have 

 windbreaks, but planted too close to the orchard they are detri- 

 mental to it in a similar manner as planting trees too closely is 

 detrimental. If our farmers have not the means to start a windbreak, 

 it would be a good idea to make an orchard windbreak of a couple 

 of hundred trees away from the other orchard, planting them close 

 and letting them answer the purpose of a windbreak. I saw those 

 apple trees of Mr. Keel's, and they bore bountifully; when 3^ou get 

 a barrel of apples from a tree that has been i)Ianted only eight years 

 it is doing remarkably well, and his orchard, too, is in a place where 

 it gets a great circixlation of air — but, I tell you, it cannot keep that 

 up. I doubt whether he will ever see as good a return from those 

 same trees as he had a year ago last fall; and if the time ever comes 

 that we get that scab or leaf disease that is going through Michigan 

 now, and which devastated the orchards in eastern Wisconsin last 



