APPLES. 249 



There is still another way to protect our plants against cut-worms, 

 and a verj- simple and effective one at that. Cut-worms, like all 

 other caterpillars, chew their food, and by coating the plants to be 

 protected with either Paris green or London purple, we can readily 

 poison the caterpillars that attack such plants. This method would 

 be a very simple one if all gardeners and farmers possessed good 

 spraying machines which would spray uniformly all the exposed 

 parts of the plants, of course including the stem, but such is not the 

 case. Besides, in manj' cases the stems of j-oung plants are cut off 

 below the surface of the ground where arsenical poisons can not 

 be applied. One thing is certain, that farmers, gardeners and flor- 

 ists can prevent anj- great loss by cut-worms if they apply one or 

 more of the above remedies iu a thorough manner. 



APPLES. 



J. p. ANDREWS, lARIBAULT. 



The apple crop iu the vicinitj' of Faribault the past season (189.5) 

 was one of only partial success. Orchard and nursery trees 

 came through the past winter (1894:-.5) in good condition. The 

 unusually earlj- spring weather, however, forced the blossoms 

 prematurel}-, and they were severely cut by the late freeze, which 

 occurred May eighteenth to twentieth. Orchards on elevated loca- 

 tions and on northern or northeastern exposure escaped with less 

 damage to crop than those located on lower ground or southern 

 slope, unless such had extra protection. 



The apple crop has now been damaged two consecutive years; iu 

 fact, a year ago it was an entire failure from this same cause, the 

 late spring frosts. One of the remedies to be applied is mulching 

 after the ground is well frozen in winter, — and when, as at the pres- 

 ent time, snow comes before freezing weather, it would need to be 

 cleaned olY from under the trees to permit the ground to freeze suf- 

 ficiently l)efore the mulch is ajjplied. Shading the bodies would 

 also be in order. Elevated location is one of the best preventatives. 



Some orchards in our neighborhood bore very little, others had a 

 fair crop; on the whole, we should think there was perhaps one-third 

 to one-half of an average crop of fruit. There has been very little 

 almost no blight, yet we have had an unusual amount of moisture^ 

 but not so extremely hot as in seasons of much blight. Both 

 orchard and nursery trees have made an excellent growth. 



The market price was good for all home grown fruit, which when 

 compared with the exceptionally low price of grain and other 

 farm crops, makes the orcliard stand, as usual, the most profitable 

 investment on the farm. 



We planted our orchard in 1878 on an elevated location and a 

 slightly northern slope with a windbreak on the south and east. The 

 trees stand fourteen feet apart each way and leaning well to the 

 southwest. The varieties are mostly Duchess, Wealth}', Orange- 

 Wliitney, Early Strawberry, Virginia, Maitlen's Blusli. and a less 

 tuimber of several other varieties of hybrids and a row or two for 

 trial of Haas, Tetof.-^ky, Peach, Walbridge, Ben Davis, Price's Sweet, 

 Fameuse, Perry Russet, Pewaukee, Jicc. Most of these trial trees 



