Minnesora STATE HorTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 97 
Mr. Hollister. Down in Southern Wiscon and Northern Illinois 
it is a common practice to seed the orchards to clover for three, 
four or five years, then to plow up, grow a crop of buckwheat, and 
seed down again. 
_ Mr. Jordon. It is safer to recommend cultivation than seeding 
ai: because the trees are less likely to be neglected. 
Pruning. 
——._ [ have killed wild plums by pruning them from the 
middle of May to the middle of June. 
Mr. Hart. I have done the same. 
Mr. Jordon. I have pruned in grafting without injury, but that 
is before the sap starts. 
Mr. Hall, I pruned my trees last spring and they made good 
growth. 
Mr. Cotterell. I have pruned and my trees have not been injured 
by it. 
Mr. Jordon. Wate pruning is what does the harm. 
MR. HARRIS’ FRUIT REPORT. 
Mr. Harris was called upon for his general fruit report. 
The report was read, accepted, and ordered on file for publication. 
The report was as follows: 
REPORT OF GENERAL FRUIT COMMITTEE FOR DISTRICT NO. 1. 
Strawberries. 
In the first district the fruit crop of 1877, was generally considerably below the 
average, and some kinds were an entire failure. Beginning with the season, 
strawberries apparently came through the previous winter in good condition. 
They blossomed and set fruit in a style that was almost marvelous, but from some 
cause or combination of causes much less than the usual quantity came to matur- 
ity, and the berries were generally of an inferior quality—small, hard and seedy 
being the prevailing type and but very few really large and fine berries among 
them. 
Who knows the cause of this? I must confessI do not. (Just previous to the 
time of ripening on my grounds the chinch bugs were very numerous, literally 
covering the base of the plants.) I do kriow thatthe better the soil the more the 
failure, and the best berries that I saw during the season were grown in a bed 
composed of sand and gravel liberally mulched with marsh hay. © 
7 
