EXPERIMENT STATIONS. 303 



long as they continue to purchase from apj^ents of unknown nursery 

 firms or froru foreijifn nurseries lonj;- distances away, instead of 

 raising their own stock or securing it of reliable local nurserymen 



Second. That too close planting of trees is not advisable in a 

 climate subject to frequent drouths. 



Third. That the very general failure of the strawberry crop this 

 season is a result of the long drouth that prevailed last season. 



June 19, 1S9<".. 



ALBERT LEA EXPERIMENT STATION. 



CLARENCE WEDGE, SUPT. 



Apples. — Nearly all varieties came through the winter in good 

 condition, and at this date, June 18, almost everything of bearing 

 age has safely set the finest crop we have ever had at this season of 

 the year; even some of the Lieby and Virginia in the nursery row 

 are showing a few apples. The following kinds seem to have proved 

 themselves heavy bearers with us: Duchess, Wealth}-, Tetofsky, 

 Hibernal, Longfield, Charlamoff, Repka Malenka, Patten's Green- 

 ing, Ostrekoff (4 M), Czar's Thorn and Transparent. All trees of the 

 Anis family are very moderate bearers and will produce pecks 

 while the Longfield will barrels; they are, however, ver}' regular in 

 the quantity that they do bear and will doubtless stand well some 

 hundreds of miles further north than the latter. Yellow Sweet is 

 bearing better than ever before, and if it continues to improve will 

 be one of our good kinds. Summer Lowland is still a very shy 

 bearer. Antonovka, set eleven years, has until this year borne 

 only specimen apples and has but a light crop now. >IcMahou is 

 also quite tardy. Of the younger trees that show signs of good 

 bearing, we note Peerless, Newell's Winter, Titus, Peter and several 

 of the Hibernal famil}'. Of the crabs, the Strawberr}', Martha and 

 Briar Sweet are very heavy bearers, and the Virginia is proving 

 an extra early bearer on our soil. 



Blight is not serious in any part of the orchard, although many 

 spurs on bearing Wealth^', Czar's Thorn and Tetofsky have blighted 

 and give the trees a bad appearance. The Transparent blights more 

 or less every year. We have not had a severe visitation of blight 

 since about 188.5, when all our Transcendents and Hyslops were 

 wiped out, and we begin to tliink that our rather thin yellow clay 

 soil and elevated situation may have much to do with our immu- 

 nity from this disease. Our orchards are and always have been 

 under clean cultivation, with but a very small part of them 

 mulched. 



Some of our best trees have latelj- been slightly injured by sun- 

 scald, and we note that the apple seems to be very susceptible to 

 this injury just as the trunk begins to put on a rough liark. We 

 have protected nearly all our older trees by lath screens and shall 



