380 ANNUAL KEPORT. 



FEOM WEIGHT COUNTY. 



Hon. Truman M. Smith: 



In the St. Paul weekly Volkszeitung of the twenty-eighth of 

 January, 1885, I read with much interest the reported proceed- 

 ings of the Horticultural Society meetings, particularly the dis- 

 cussion about the culture of fruit trees. I do not think, however, 

 that the information elicited covered ground enough, and as I 

 have made the subject a study in Germany, and had ten years 

 practice, I take the liberty to contribute what I believe will be 

 useful additional information. For instance, chickens are not 

 effective in ridding trees from caterpillars, for the reason that 

 they cannot always get at them at the right times to prevent 

 their doing injury. One of the best methods to get rid of these 

 pests is, to smear a wide, thick girdle of tar around the trees 

 about two feet above the ground, in the fall, and renew it until 

 winter sets in. The female caterpillar, which cannot fly, in at- 

 tempting to crawl up the tree to deposit her eggs on the leaves 

 or the soft bark of the young twigs, will thus stick fast in the 

 tar and die. The young insects which do the injury are those 

 that hatch upon the upper branches. They at once attack the 

 young leaves and twigs in the spring. • 



According to the instruction I have received, and this is con- 

 firmed by my experience, the splitting of the bark of trees is 

 occasioned neither by the severe cold of winter or the intense 

 heat of summer, but by early spring frosts. The first warm 

 days start the trees growing, and the frosts of succeeding cold 

 nights cools the bark to freezing; then comes the next day's hot 

 sunshine, melts the frost quickly and thaws the bark. The rapid 

 contraction and expansion act as a bruise, the bark becomes dry 

 and preventing the circulation of sap, of course loses its vitality 

 and is split by the force of the growing wood within. 



The proper method of dealing successfully^with this evil, is to 

 cover such exposed portions of the tree in the fall, and remove 

 such i^rotection after there is no more danger of heavy frosts in 

 the spring. 



If one desires to save a tree that has been injured thus, the 

 best plan is to cut away the dead bark and wood down to, but 

 not deep enough to injure the sound wood, and cover the wound 

 with tree wax (grafting wax). If we would grow the finest table 

 apples, we must take great care of them in the start, and my 

 plan is to set them in the nursery, when they are from nine 



