APPLES. 125 



WINDBREAKS. 



Mr. Wedge: I would like to have the society take a vote. I will 

 make a motion that this society resolve that we are in favor of a 

 windbreak of some kind on all sides of the orchard. I would like to 

 see what proportion favor a windbreak on all sides of the orchard. 



Mr. Dratt: I want to amend the motion. I want to amend by say- 

 ing that the society is in favor of a windbreak on the south side of 

 the orchard. I am in favor of a windbreak, but I do not want it all 

 around, so I would be obliged to vote against his motion, when, at 

 the same time, I am in favor of part of it. 



Mr. Toole: I would advise you to be rather slow in making a posi- 

 tive recommendation of this kind. You might vote it wholly down, 

 and it hardly comports with the dignity of this society to be chang- 

 ing continually. You maj^, probably, come to where we came in 

 Wisconsin. We cannot take a positive stand one way or another 

 unless we take a chapter to explain certain conditions. 



Mr. C. Hawkinson: I thinft; it depends upon the location. 



Mr. P. M. Perry: I have an experimental orchard. I have a wind- 

 break on the south and north of natural timber. I think it is a 

 damage for quite a distance into the orchard. The trees do not bear 

 anywhere near as they would without a windbreak. I have a south 

 and a north slope. The trees on the south slope have all died out 

 with one exception, and that is the Martha. The Martha is the tree 

 to take the place of the Transcendent, and it is a regular bearer. On 

 the north slope, the trees are healthy right in the same row with 

 those on the south slope, which have nearl}^ all died out in six 

 years. 



Mr. Somerville: I do not think it would l)e proper to take a vote 

 on this qitestion. For, wherever we live where the nature of the 

 country is such that the wind is already broken up, and consider- 

 ably broken up, there we are not bothered with those hard winds; but 

 in our part of the state a different treatment is required all the time 

 and for every kind of tree there; here it is more natural for a tree 

 to grow, whether protected by a windbreak or not. You go out in 

 Brown, Cottonwood and those counties west; there we could not 

 raise a Transcendent crab without a windbreak. I have never advo- 

 cated the idea once that it was apy advantage to have a windbreak 

 right near a tree for the purpose of keeping the fruit on, but I think 

 it would be vxtterly impossible to go ovit on the bleak prairie and set 

 out trees without any protection around them and ever expect to get 

 an)^ fruit. It might not be advisable to have a windbreak all around 

 the orchard, but it is absolutely necessary out on the prairie, and, in 

 mj' opinion, it is the onlj^ successful way an orchard can be raised 

 on the open prairie. But I do not think it would be well to take a de- 

 cisive vote either one way or the other, because different localities 

 require different treatment. That would be my opinion; it would 

 not be prudent to take a vote on it, because there are many opposed 

 to it; but out on the prairie it is absolutely necessary. 



Col. Stevens: Where I was brought up in southern Wisconsin^ 

 known as the " lead mines," I remember a great many years ago (we 

 were 5 oung then) there came up a "norther" one time; it was on the 



