9 6 
THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN. 
Eastern and southeastern Dakota’s climatic conditions are 
very moist as compared with the central and western parts of 
our state. Several varieties of trees are known to do well in 
the eastern part which utterly fail in the western. The hard, or 
sugar, maple, which is a native of Minnesota, Wisconsin, 
Canada and recently found in South Dakota, where the at¬ 
mosphere is cold but damp, fails completely in those parts of 
the state where it is very dry. The Golden prune, a native of 
California, is a grand success in parts of our state. It is for 
the same reason that the Fameuse apple thrives in Canada but 
is a rank failure in South Dakota. From this data, the sooner 
we give up the idea that it is our cold winter alone that kills 
our trees, the sooner will our prairies be dotted with orchards 
and plantations.- 
SEVERAL DRAWBACKS. 
Another drawback has been the lack of cultivation, both be¬ 
fore and after planting. We have a very hard subsoil, loosen¬ 
ing of which manifestly aids the tree planter. In an experi¬ 
ment at the College Station as to the behavior of the roots of 
seedling trees with ordinary culture or on sub-soiled land, it 
was fully demonstrated that there was a great advantage to be 
had by subsoiling. Many growers have found it beneficial to 
give complete culture to the orchards and never seed them to 
grass or clover, for as soon as the grass once gets started the 
trees cease to grow. Probably the hardest question to solve 
is the one of late spring frosts. It has been estimated that 
the crop of 1897 was reduced 90 per cent, by the frosts the 
latter part of May. It seems almost an impossibility to pile 
up enough brush, straw etcetera, to keep the temperature above 
freezing for a period of three or four nights in succession, 
but, many of our most successful men are doing this. 
Until recently our orchards have been comparatively free 
from blight, but last year seems to have been a bad year, for 
out of fifty varieties of mostly Russian apples and crabs the 
Shields crab was the only one that was perfectly free. The 
Martha and Duchess were only slightly affected, while the 
Early Strawberry and Transcendent crabs were so badly used 
up that it was found advisable to remove the trees bodily 
from the orchard. 
During the past five years the jack rabbits have been in¬ 
creasing so rapidly as to caxise no little alarm as to how we are 
to protect our orchards. It is not an uncommon thing to see 
them running in droves from fifty to one hundred and fifty. 
As yet they are not doing the damage that the wood, or cotton¬ 
tail rabbits are doing, because they do not burrow under the 
snow, but rather prefer the young, tender shoots which project 
above the snow, and are especially fond of one year old trees. 
The average farmer will be able to protect his few trees from 
rabbits by means of wire netting or laths and wire, which will 
serve also as a protection to stems of trees from sun-scald. 
OTHER FRUITS. 
Aside from the apple, other fruits have met with similar 
drawbacks. In parts of our state, and more especially along 
the Missouri river, are thickets of wild plums of the yellow 
and red varieties. They are, of course, hardy and adapted to 
the climate, except where the trees have been pruned very 
high, in which cases the stems have become sunscalded, which 
is common in all orchards where the trees have not been 
headed very low. Scattered over the state are a few very 
creditable plum orchards grow n from pits and trees obtained 
along the river. 
The Buffalo berry (Shepherdia argentia) and sand cherry 
(Prunus pumila) are both being cultivated, with the expecta¬ 
tion of developing palatable fruit from them. 
Strawberries have done fairly well where they have had a 
reasonable amount of care, but too many people take care of 
them during the fruiting season only, and many patches have 
fruited accordingly. Gooseberries and currants have proved 
a grand success in the dryest parts of the state when planted 
and properly cared for. 
We have comparatively little rain in the western and central 
portions of our state, but the soil is remarkably retentive of 
moisture and under thorough cultivation yields up for the use 
of growing crops all the moisture necessary for their perfect 
development. 
We of South Dakota are learning the secret of successful 
horticulture : we must stop plowing four inches deep and be¬ 
gin to plough twelve ; we must continue to cultivate, we must 
all become horticulturists, in that we put a great deal of labor 
upon a little land. We have learned that groves that will hold 
the winter snows and send them melted over the fields in 
spring are almost as good as artesian wells. 
THE GROWTH OF CUTTINGS. 
Answering a correspondent in the Rural New Yorker, H. E. 
Van Deman says : ‘‘Cuttings of the Le Conte pear will strike 
root easily in some climates and soils. Kieffer does not root 
so easily. Sandy and loose soil is suitable. The natural con¬ 
ditions must be somewhat similar to those which the gardener 
has who induces cuttings of various kinds to strike root in a 
greenhouse, v r here he uses bottom heat to induce the roots to 
grow. A cold, clammy soil is not like this, and the cuttings 
cannot strike root easily where the air and warmth of the sun 
do not penetrate readily. 
“Speaking from the standpoint of the scientist, a cutting of 
any kind of tree or plant will grow if treated rightly, but from 
the standpoint of the practical propagator, it is not so. The 
science of cuttings forming roots is that, under favorable con¬ 
ditions, the cells of the cambium layer multiply and grow out 
into a whitish mass which we call callus ; if kept in the ground 
or in such place as will furnish the right conditions, the new 
cells will organize themselves into tender rootlets, and finally, 
into substantial and vigorous roots. When this process can 
be induced easily and cheaply, the practical grower says that 
the cuttings of this or that kinfl will grow, as for instance, 
those of the grape and currant. Those of the oak and pine 
will grow too, if they can be kept in such a state as to induce 
the callus to form, and then the roots, before the buds expand 
too much, and the leaves grow and consume all the nourish¬ 
ment stored in the buds and twigs, and evaporate the moisture 
in the cutting. The roots gather food and water, and the 
growth and leaves consume them. If the consumption is more 
rapid than the supply, then death must ensue. 
I have experimented in the open ground with cuttings of 
oak, walnut, hickory, maple, poplar, elm, ash, wild cherry, 
apple, pear, peach, plum, etc., and got excellent starts from 
the oak and other large-budded kinds ; but their death was 
sure and swift in the end. When the store of starch and sugar 
had been consumed by the expanding leaves, there being no 
roots to absorb more of the elements of plant food and water 
from the soil, they had to die from starvation and thirst. 
