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346 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
put a stop to their growth. Mow and burn the tops from the aspa- 
agus beds as soon as growth is done, and apply a liberal dressing 
of manure. Plants in the amateur flower garden that are to be kept 
over for winter’s blooming or setting again next year should be 
taken up and potted early, shaded fora few days and protected from 
injury by frosts. This is the season of fairs and every wide awake 
horticulturist has now an opportunity by attending themto layina 
stock of information that can hardly be gotinany other way or place. 
All who can should show something to help out the exhibition and 
make them interesting for others, as well as post themselves up on 
the fruits, flowers and vegetables. 
WINDMILL IRRIGATION.—J. F. Monson of Sedgwick county, Colo., 
thus gives his experience with windmill irrigation: “During the 
extreme drouth of three years ago an idea struck me to construct a 
reservoir and use windmills and pumps to fill it. I selected the 
only suitable place on the farm to build the reservoir, which was 
sandy or rather gravelly, and it was necessary to build it of stone 
and cement it inside. It was made 80 feet in diameter with 4% feet 
walls banked up all around on the outside. I dug two wells as near 
the reservoir as possible. I had to go 20 feet fora supply of water, 
so erected two 12-foot windmills. One of them operates a 4-inch 
double acting cylinder and throws a 2-inch steady stream; the other 
mill operates a 4-inch single acting cylinder which does not pump 
so much as the other. With this arrangement I can irrigate about 
10 acres of land. I have raised garden stuff, mostly onions, celery, 
potatoes, and have begun to plant fruit trees and small fruit, and it 
has thus far paid fairly well on the investment considering my 
inexperience in irrigation. I feel thoroughly satisfied that with 
experience and good attendance it will be a paying investment.” 
How To GET ANNUAL CROPS OF FRUIT.—As a rule apples bear 
biennially. Where all of one’s orchard possesses this habit, he has 
a flood of apples one season and none the next; thus, he has profit 
from his orchard but half the time, and every alternate year must 
either purchase apples for family use or go without. It is doubtless 
true that the reason for this is,a heavy crop of fruit so exhausts 
trees that it takes the second year to recuperate. My theory is that 
if the fruit be all removed from a tree or any of its main branches 
soon after the fruit sets, that tree or branch will bear the next year. 
I have proceeded far enough in the experiment to have ocular 
evidence that the theory is correct, for at this writing I can show a 
branch of a Baldwin which was stripped of its fruit last June, and 
the balance bore heavily, and now the branch is full of fruit and the 
rest of the tree has none. A Seek-no-Further tree, partly stripped 
two years ago, presented the same feature last season, and continues 
it this, on alternate sides. 
