Part 36 (2/2)
[Ill.u.s.tration: Specimen Colorado blue spruce at Dewain Cook's.]
We have to report a grand success with everbearing strawberry No. 1017, sent to this station from our State Fruit-Breeding Farm last spring. The season all through was favorable for that cla.s.s of fruit. We kept all blossoms picked off till about the first of August, when we let everything grow, and there is a great number of new plants. These new plants, with a few exceptions, did not bear, but the old plants, the ones set last spring, we gathered from them, from about September 15 till the first hard frost, October 5th, a liberal crop of surprisingly fine fruit. The Americus, also an everbearing variety, treated exactly as we did Minnesota 1017, bore a great number of plants and some fruit in the fall. The berries were not so large as the 1017 nor so many of them. While it is a perfect flowering variety, most of the late blossoms blighted, which seems to be a weakness of this variety.
On November 5th our strawberry beds were all given a mulching with loose oat straw for a winter protection.
The several varieties of grape vines originating at the Minnesota State Farm on trial here have all made a vigorous growth. We have them all pruned and laid on the ground, and we intend to give them no other winter protection. They are in a sheltered location. In spite of the various freezes early in the season we got samples of fruit from most of the varieties. Minnesota No. 8 seems to be the earliest to ripen its fruit. The wild grape flavor is noticeable in all these varieties.
The various varieties of plum trees sent here from the State Farm made vigorous growth the past season and are looking healthy with the exception of Minnesota No. 21. Of the five trees of this variety each one has a great many galls on the body of the tree. It is probably what is termed black knot, only the galls have not turned black yet. They are apparently of too recent growth for that. It is probable that we will plant other trees in their places next spring.
PAINTING OF SMALL TREE WOUNDS USELESS.--It has long been the custom for horticulturists to recommend, and fruit growers to use, dressings of various kinds on the wounds of trees when branches are removed in pruning. A few years ago the New York Experiment Station decided to conduct some experiments to determine whether such practice was really of any value or not.
From results of this work, which have recently been published in bulletin form, it is concluded that the use of white lead, white zinc, yellow ochre, coal tar, sh.e.l.lac and avenarious carbolineum as coverings for wounds under five inches in diameter is not only useless, but usually detrimental to the tree. This is particularly true of peaches, and perhaps of some other stone fruits, which, according to recommendations, should never be treated at all.
The substances mentioned often injure the cambium layer to such an extent that the healing of wounds is greatly r.e.t.a.r.ded. Of the substances experimented with, white lead proved to be the best and is recommended wherever anything is used. But it is not thought worth while to use even white lead for wounds two or three inches or less in diameter, though it may be advisable to use it on wounds where very large branches have been removed.
On the larger wounds, where much surface is exposed to decay, the white lead will help to keep out moisture and the organisms which cause decay.
The smaller wounds, however, heal so quickly that the evil effects of the covering may more than offset the benefits derived from its use.--R.A. McGinty, Colorado Agricultural College, Fort Collins, Colorado.
Annual Report, 1915, Montevideo Trial Station.
LYCURGUS R. MOYER, SUPT.
About twenty-six years ago a plantation of white spruce was made at this station. The trees flourished for several years and bade fair to become a permanent success, but some six or eight years ago they began to fail and many of them have since died. The survivors are all in poor condition. It seems that this tree is not well adapted to prairie conditions, at least not to the prairies of Southwestern Minnesota. Its native range is much further north. Here it evidently suffers from heat and dryness. The Black Hills spruce is commonly regarded as belonging to the same species. It has not been tested nearly so long, but so far it seems to be entirely hardy.
Something like thirty years ago a few trees of black spruce, a few trees of European larch and a few trees of balsam fir were planted here. They have long since disappeared. White pine planted at about the same time disappeared with them. A single tree of Scotch pine planted at about the same time, standing in the open, is gnarled and crooked and shows a great many dead branches. A forest plantation of several thousand Scotch pine, made something like twenty-two years ago, is still in good condition. Many of the trees are from twenty-five to thirty feet high.
Some of the smaller trees have been over-topped and smothered out, but generally the trees seem healthy. A few hundred of the black, or Austrian, pine were set at the same time. They are about two-thirds of the height of the Scotch pine, but they are as healthy and vigorous trees as one would care to see. Some trees of rock, or bull, pine (Pinus scopulorum) were set at the same time. They have grown at about the same rate as the black pine and are healthy, vigorous trees.
Norway spruce has done better here than white spruce, some old trees fruiting freely. The Colorado blue spruce (Picea pungens) seems to be our best spruce, and so far as tested the Black Hills spruce is a good second. Douglas fir has been planted in a small way in the parks, but it is young yet.
It seems probable that the Scotch pines in the forestry plantation owe their comparatively good condition to the shelter they get from the hot winds from being planted close together, and from the fact that they are partly protected by the black pines planted to the west of them. The single tree of Scotch pine above referred to has had garden cultivation for thirty years, but it seems likely that it was injured by the same hot winds that killed the white pine and the larch. The Scotch pine is a native of Northern Europe, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Scotland, Normandy (near the ocean) and Germany and Russia around the Baltic, and all these countries have a moist, cool climate. The black pine is a native of Southern Europe, growing all the way from Southern Spain to the Taurus Mountains in Asia Minor. In its native habitat it has become accustomed to the hot winds that often sweep across the Mediteranean, the burning sirocco of the Great Sahara. The dwarf mountain pine, Pinus Montana, grows in the Pyrenees, in the Alps, in the Carpathians and in the Balkan Mountains, so that it, too, often encounters the hot winds that come across from the African deserts. It is probable that the ability of the black pine, the dwarf mountain pine, the Black Hills spruce, and the rock pine to flourish on the prairies of Southwestern Minnesota is due to the fact that all these trees have become accustomed to resisting the hot, dry winds that often reach them in their native habitats.
The Norway spruce (Picea excelsa) in its many varieties is native to almost the whole of Europe, extending from north of the Arctic Circle to the Pyrenees and Balkan Mountains in Southern Europe. We could then expect that trees from the Pyrenees or from the Balkans might be so well accustomed to the hot winds from Africa as to make them resist, at least for some time, the hot winds of the prairies. And they do seem to stand better than the white spruce or the balsam fir or the white pine.
Some report should be made on the material sent out for trial from the State Fruit-Breeding Farm. The strawberry, No. 1017, made a fine growth, and promised a large crop of fruit in September, but a few days of quite dry weather, following a very wet spell, ruined the crop at ripening time.
The raspberry, No. 4, is a great producer of sprouts and multiplies enormously, but it seems to be a rather shy fruiter, and the fruit is not of the highest quality. It is intermediate in season. No. 5 is a much larger and better berry, although not quite so hardy. Both came through the winter, without covering, in good condition. No. 8 seems to resemble the old Columbian. It does not sucker much. It is a large, late berry of good quality. It was covered, so its hardiness is untested.
Prof. Hansen's Oheta is a berry of much promise. It is of fine quality and fruits abundantly.
The hybrid plums were sprayed with a commercial dust spray but not effectively enough, for the fruit all rotted. We shall try more thorough spraying next season.
Patten's Greening, Oldenburg, Okabena and Simbrish No. 1 produced a good crop of apples. With us Okabena is undersized, of poor flavor and an extremely poor keeper.
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