392 ANNUAL REPORT 



for the first of the season. We have sold them in Minneapolis 

 at three dollars a bushel as fast as we could get them to market. 

 After the market is once supplied, of course the prices decline 

 rapidly. But we calculate our first pickings will pay us well 

 for the whole crop. 



I have tried various plans for securing my stock of tomato 

 plants. Have bought them in New York, in Illinois, in this 

 State, and I have never had as good success with i^lants ob- 

 tained elsewhere as with those I grow myself. I will give you 

 my method if you desire to know how I raise tomato plants. I 

 use the Canada Vick; it does not grow to vines; the vine is 

 small, and the tomatoes mature early. Acme is our next best 

 in market. I plant the seed by the first of March in my hot 

 house, planting Cauadas first. In a week or so I plant Acme. 

 When they show the third or fourth leaf I transplant and re- 

 move to a cooler place. Plan to get good-sized plants, trans- 

 planting into deeper boxes and hold them in my hot house until 

 about the middle of April, when I put them out. We have our 

 pile of compost and manage to control them very well by set- 

 ting them about the fifteenth of April. Have found tomatoes a 

 profitable crop. 



The following paper was- placed on file for publication: 

 LAWS GOVERNING THE HARDINESS OF PLANTS. 



By J. 0. Barrett, Browns Valley, Traverse County. 



Every observing and experienced horticulturist reports some- 

 thing different from all the rest, sometimes contradictory, and 

 yet is right from his standpoint. Special environment involves 

 special phenomena with facts corresponding. But who abso- 

 lutely knows? After we have compared notes and summed up 

 the testimony as to the hardiness of such and such plants, we 

 query still, and remain humble pupils amid nature's intermina- 

 ble mysteries. To dogmatize in horticulture is an unpardonable 

 presumption. Better lay our ears close to our plants, and listen 

 to what they have to say. If I can suggest something worthy of 

 investigation, it is enough. 



We know that tropical plants, like animals, can not be imme- 

 diately transported into our latitude and live. It must first be 

 graduated by slow and careful methods. After successive years 

 of patient trial under the law of the transmission of qualities, 



