; : Rie 
168 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
weeds and stimulated to early growth by cultivating or raking the 
ground over, to keep the surface soil fine and mellow, as often as 
once a week. The fruiting beds should be kept clean from weeds 
and well mulched between the rows to keep the fruit clean. That 
fruit which is sent to market should be picked carefully into clean 
boxes, gaging the degree of ripeness by the distance they are to be 
transported. For near market, it should be fully ripe enough for 
use; and for long distance, it should be full grown and well colored 
before picked. Every berry in a box should be of one grade and 
degree of ripeness. 
The currants, gooseberries and raspberries should be well culti- 
vated and a little later mulched with green clover or other material, 
It pays to pinch off the ends of the new canes of black raspberries 
as soon as they get two to two and one-half feet high; but the red 
varieties should not be pinched or cut back during the growing 
season. Keep the sprouts thin enough to insure strong cane. 
Grapes. One healthy vigorous cane toa root the first year after 
planting and two the second year. Fruiting vines should be kept 
tied up securely to supports. Generally, itis an advantage to stop 
the fruit bearing canes of the present year, that is,have their further 
growth in length prevented by pinching off the point leaving three 
leaves beyond the last cluster of fruit. This should be done early, 
and surplus suckers removed. If done after rank growth is made, 
the vine is weakened and more liable to attacks of mildew and rot 
and the fruit made later in maturing. 
VEGETABLES. 
In the kitchen and market garden, work is now on with a rush. 
Keep the asparagus beds clean from weeds and, during the cutting 
season, cut as often as the shoots become long enough for use, and 
do not leave the small and crooked roots to grow. Lima beans had 
better not be planted before the middle or last of the month, and it 
is generally better not to risk all the tomato, egg plant and peppers, 
until about the twentieth of the month. Early beets and carrots 
should be thinned and weeded out, and cabbage, cauliflower and 
other early vegetables hoed and cultivated every week. 
SPRAYING 
Will be commenced at the tree station the coming season. In my 
own orchards of over 3,000 trees, I have practiced it for the last three 
years, using one-fourth pound Paris green to about forty gallons of 
water. Last season I added about one-half pound concentrated lye 
to each forty gallons. with seemingly beneficial results, as the trees 
took on a remarkably healthy look. [am unable to say how much 
I gained by spraying, as I spray all my trees, but I have so much 
faith init that it will be continued. It is thought best to spray as 
soon as blossoms fall and once or twice more at intervals of ten days 
or two weeks. I think, next spring I will spray once before the buds 
open, in which case I will use a much larger proportion of the lye, 
as there will be no foliage to be harmed. Alkali promotes the 
growth of trees. EK. H.S. DARTT, Owatonna. 
