184 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Mr. Wilcox: Can you destroy quack grass by cultivation? 



Prof. Hays: You can keep it down. If you break it up and 

 grow a couple of crops and get your land ready for trees, so 

 there is practically no quack grass on it, by cultivating it care- 

 fully for a few years you will get your trees started before the 

 quack grass amounts to much. 



Mr. Wilcox: I have had some little experience and I would 

 like to throw a little light upon this subject if I can. The 

 ground that I planted, commencing in the season of 1883, was 

 broken in the season of 1874. My system of planting is to 

 plant in perfectly straight rows, an air line, so to speak. I 

 hardly ever cultivate more than two years with a team and 

 cultivator. After that I allow my hogs to do the cultivation. 

 My system of cultivation the first year is with a common corn 

 cultivator, and if hoed both ways they can be kept reasonably 

 clean. I stop before harvest, and if any weeds start then it is 

 cultivated the next year in a different way altogether. My 

 rows being perfectly straight, I allow the weeds to get up about 

 six inches high and then take a sharp plow with a very sharp 

 coulter, plowing just as shallow as possible. The plow should 

 be perfectly bright and scoured so it will not clog at all. I turn 

 a little furrow as close to the tree as possible — and that is one 

 place where straight rows come in handy, you can get closer 

 than when they vary from a straight line. Then I take a hoe 

 and brush these out, and as soon as the weeds have had time to 

 die I turn the soil again, which is just the same as summer fal- 

 lowing. My trees have been remarked upon by the county aud- 

 itor as being the best trees of their age in our county, yet that 

 is all the cultivation that they have had. I plant my rows of 

 trees as I plant corn, seven feet one way by three and a half 

 the other. I will say right here that they have long since passed 

 the time when they had to be thinned out. 



Mr. Barrett: I think the society will make a serious mistake 

 if it entertains the idea of cultivating so late in the season. I 

 wish that Mr. Smith would give us a few ideas upon it. 



Mr. Smith: I simply endorse the plan that the gentleman 

 who spoke last outlined. 



Pres. Underwood: As I understand it, both systems have 

 been thoroughly advocated here. 



Prof. Hays: Yes. When I made the statement regarding 

 late cultivation it was intended for those western sections 

 where the quack grass grows all over the prairie. When land 

 is broken up this grass takes possession of it, if it is not looked 



