412 ANNUAL REPORT. • 



warm current of air came from the southwest late in the fall that 

 started the sap so that trees in warm soils and situations were in 

 bloom — ours were just opening their bloom buds when winter set in, 

 consequently any tree that could not stand to be hard froze in full sap 

 flow, had to die. On cold stiff clay soil trees suflFered least. And in 

 further proof of our theory of dead trees, is the fact that throughout 

 Michigan and on northeast exposure trees came through all right, 

 whilst the same varieties were killed in states further south, where the 

 extreme of cold is not so great. Therefore, I say to one and all, take 

 courage, reset and go ahead, the ordeal is past. 



PRUNING OF THE GRAPE. 



By Je&se B. Rogers, Milburn, New Jersey. 



The following extracts are from a lecture by Mr. Rogers, Milburn, 

 N. J., given at the request of grape raisers and fruit growers in attend- 

 ance upon the second annual fair of the Hennepin County Horti- 

 cultural Society, at Market Hall, Minneapolis, on the evening of the 

 23rd of September, 1885, reported by the Secretary. 



Brother Horticulturists of Minnesota: 



When, on the 14th day of September, 1883, the committee on native 

 fruits in awarding the Wilder silver medal, reported to the American 

 Pomological Society, then in session in Philadelphia, in these words: 

 **We award the Wilder silver n.edal to the Minnesota State Horti- 

 cultural Society for an exhibition of apples and grapes," Minnesota 

 took her place among the states of this Union as a recognized horti- 

 cultural power. Many of the delegates of your sister states for the 

 first time had their attention called to Minnesota as a horticultural 

 state. I was among that number, and I resolved for one to visit the 

 spot whereon those grapes were grown. That I have done, and I 

 have seen the place which Minnesota should always hold sacred in her 

 horticultural annals. 



This evening I intended to say something concerning the pruning 

 of the grape vine. 



* * You take a pair of iron shears in your hand and go into your 

 vineyard. Unless the mind and the eye control the muscles of your 

 hand you might just as well send a steam engine or a mowing machine 

 among your vines to perform your work. My first point will be that 

 you must educate your mind. The first great requisite is to perform 

 more than one half of your labor in pruning the grape at your desk 



