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APPLES. 103 
as if it were exposed. Cellaction takes place around the roots 
as well as anywhere else. 
Mr. Pearse: I can cut a whip stock four feet long perfectly 
green—cut it in the fall—, and in the following spring I find it 
is dry, and it shows conclusively that something is going on. 
Prof. Green: There is no change from starch to sugar. Of 
course, there is evaporation going on; it passes through the 
trunk of the tree right into the earth. 
Mr. Phillips: Do you think it kills the borers to whitewash 
Prof. Green: Where a person is troubled with mice there is 
no harm in using linseed oil right on the trunks of the trees; I 
have used glue a good deal on peach trees. 
Mr. Philips: I will say | have two trees at home standing 
alone; one I protected and the other is exposed, and it may be 
- after ten or twelve years I can tell something about them. 
REPORT ON APPLES. 
BARNETT TAYLOR, FORESTVILLE. 
Apple production in this part of Minnesota in 1893 was a mixture 
of about equal parts of sunshine and shadow. The trees came 
through the winter of 1892-3 in perfect condition, so far as injury 
from winter-killing was concerned; even tender varieties were green 
and sound to the terminal buds. When blooming time came the 
blossoms were seemingly sparse, but there proved to be enough, and 
a fine crop of fruit was set, which grew finely until about the size of 
peas, and we reported the prospect for the greatest crop of apples 
ever grown on our grounds. But about this time a new danger made 
its appearance in the shape of a new form of blight, which attacked 
the fruit spurs of the trees, which died, and the whole of the apples 
would suddenly wither. This destructive work continued, attacking 
all varieties of crabs and standards until it appeared at one time that 
the crop must be almost an entire failure in this region; but in this 
we were happily disappointed, for some spurs escaped, and there was 
about a half of a crop of fair fruit matured. 
There has been much speculation as to the nature and cause of 
this blighting of the fruit spurs. Some attributed it to the severe 
late frosts, others held the cause to be from the weakened vitality of 
the fruit spurs from winter injury, but none of these theories were 
satisfactory to my mind. The theory of winter injury was unsatis- 
fory because I know from close investigation that the fruit spurs 
were the soundest from winter harm of any year in my experience; 
late freezing was unsatisfactory because in the several cases on our 
grounds, the most exposed trees and tenderest varieties were injured 
the least; and to charge it to the disease termed blight, in the ordi- 
nary understanding of that disease, is not sustained, because the 
young growth is the part affected in that complaint, the fruit spurs 
