MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL, SOCIETY. 25 
Mr. Dartt asked if ants are injurious to trees. . . 
Mr. Cannon considered them the best preservative of the 
trees. 
Mr. Bost thought the ants only infested the trees for a honey 
substance that the aphis drops when worried, and that this 
bothering of them might compel them to drain more sap from 
the tree. 
Mr. Jewell moved to consider to what causes are to be 
ascribed the wholesale destruction of fruit trees the past winter 
or spring. 
Carried. * 
Mr. Stewart ascribes this loss to the immaturity of the wood 
and severe freezing. 
Mr. Dartt considers the severe freezing alone the cause. 
Mr. Stubbs—Caused by severe freezing. Animal life can 
endure only a certain degree of cold, and the tree, too, has its 
limit. ; 
Mr. Carter, of St. Peter, thinks the sun somewhat to blame. 
Mr. Gould believes the extreme cold did the damage. Saw 
scions of Flemish Beauty pear last January that were entirely 
dead, and this before the season had become warm. Grape 
vines were also killed down in Ohio, eight miles below the 
lake shore; vines that had never been affected before. 
Mr. Brand does not consider the cold altogether the cause, 
but the dry weather and dry soil were fully as much to blame. 
On the grounds of Mr. Drew, where he had seen the hardier 
varieties dead, it was dry soil throughout. He had seen the 
Ben Davis killed by cold weather, but not the Duchess of 
Oldenburg or Fameuse. 
Dr. Humphreys questioned whether the drouth of the pre- 
ceding summer and fall had not impaired the vitality of the 
trees and rendered them easily overcome by the cold. 
Mr. Jewell believes the extreme cold weather the cause of 
this loss. In his locality it was quite wet in the fall, and trees 
could not have been killed by dryness of soil. Thinks the 
roots of unmulched trees were killed by excessive cold, and 
not by lack or excess of moisture. Thinks there is a certain 
lowness of temperature at which any variety would be killed. 
Trees ripen up and stand the winter better if the ground is 
dry. 
Air. Dartt knew of hardy varieties like Transcendents to 
have root killed while the tender ones had not. The plum he 
had introduced from Wisconsin stood the winter, while the 
Ilnois variety succumbed to it. 
Mr. Brand stated that J. O. Milne had not lost a single tree 
of Ben Davis; and this, he considered, was due to the fact 
that in that part of the State (Sauk Centre) there were heavy 
