120 



ANNUAL REPORT. 



Water tanks that had been uncovered fn ze up wor.se than they had been during 

 the whole winter. We had to chop the ice out of our watering troughs for stock to 

 drink. This was the third and last shock, and how could we have expected anything 

 more than a general destruction V Here we beg to insert two items which have 

 come under our immediate observation. We have hundreds of others to demon- 

 strate the position we liave taken, that c©ld is not king in the destruction of our 

 hardy trees. John Cliue, of Panora, Iowa, has an orchard with two ridges running 

 east and west through the center of the orchard. Has some ten different varieties 

 in rows running north and south over the ridges, and across the two sags; the snow 

 blew off these ridges, settled in the sags, freezing on these ridges and not in the 

 sags. Each of these varieties as they passed over these ridges were left alive, tliose 

 in the sags (with ground unfrozen) of each variety all died. Andrew Peterson, of 

 Waconia, Minn , west of St. Paul, on an exposed, high, elevated site, takes all the 

 premiums on apples at this meeting, in Jan., 1886, while J. S. Harris, down in the 

 southeast corner of Minnesota, in a snug, cozy, protected site, close surrounded by 

 the Mississippi timber, her high bluffs, and high ridges, with all his care and skill, 

 which is not equaled by anyone in Minnesota, if in the Northwest, has not the 

 first apple on exliibition. For many years in the past lie has had the honor of car- 

 rying off the great share of blue ribbons. If our theory is not correct then Mr. 

 Harris' place must have been the coldest, and Mr. Peterson's much the warmest. 

 We have facts without end to show that the same varieties of trees grown in thick- 

 et form, or under protection from sun have come out entirely unharmed, while 

 those on same soil and same conditions as to site (excepting their exposure to the 

 warmtli of the sun), have been killed dead. 



If it was untimely heat then let us be prepared to guard against the like in the 

 future, wJiich we can. But if excessive cold, as many affirm, we are lost with but 

 one road left to retreat and that across Behring Straits. 



We examined the twigs nearly ever} week from December till May. We found 

 the tender kinds killed back, some more, and some less, some to the ground; but 

 our well known iron-clads were only sli2;htly discolored leafing out nearly to the 

 ends of the twigs while their trunks were badly discolored. We trimmed every 

 month all Winter to test winter pruning; observed no discolored wood until the 

 last day of February in the trunks. Now if cold was king will some one answer a 

 few questions: 1. How the bodies of our most hardy kinds showed more injury 

 than their twigs, and why such kinds should leaf out almost to the last bud? Why 

 were chestnut trees standing single, ruined while those near by standing in close 

 thicket entirely uninjured? This answered, will you next tell us how it happened 

 that one orchard in our township facing north had always been up to 1884 and 1885 

 remarkably thrifty and productive, while the other cornering this but facing south 

 had been one of the poorest but came out last Spring full the best? Why, says one, 

 that is perfectly easy to answer. The one facing north without any protection 

 received the greatest amount of cold. So we thought the first time we examined 

 these orchards. We felt then that all our labor to show that trees the most exposed 

 to cold came out of winter the best was scattered like chaff. We had for years 

 held this north orchard as being one of our most conclusive evidences that a cold 

 slope without protection was better than the opposite conditions. After studying 

 these conditions in these two orchards a few days we went and re-examined them 



