h spraying. You could easily see
which had been sprayed and which not. Excessive rain at the vital time
prevented my completion of the work. I am convinced by experience, too,
that the dormant spray, usually neglected by most growers, is very
necessary and am sure better and healthier foliage is obtained by this
practice, and by it the scale can be controlled in a large degree.

I had eight to ten Patten's Greening trees that had been attacked by a
disease called by some "oyster scale." The trees abnormally lost their
foliage early in the season, and I had about decided they were dead
when, after a dormant spray the following spring, they entirely revived
and are now as healthy as any trees on my place.

I have practiced top-working to some extent and for the past three or
four years have been able to put down in my cellar, several bushels of
Jonathan, Grimes Golden, Delicious and other varieties. Have now about
125 Jonathan trees top-worked on Hibernals, and except for some blight
they have done splendidly.

There is no room for discussion, no room for argument in any way, why
fruit-growing in Minnesota is not a very successful business to be
engaged in. I have demonstrated, I am sure, that if I can bring an
orchard into bearing and hold down a good, fairly lucrative position at
the same time and do so with very little expense, and others can do the
some thing.

Now I am going to criticise some one and let the criticism fall where it
belongs. There has been a great injustice done the commercial fruit
grower, or those trying to grow fruit commercially, by advising, urging,
or anything else you choose to call it, the farmer or small homekeeper
to buy more fruit trees and plants than this class of individual needs
for his own use. In order to receive some returns for this surplus, he
rushes it into town and sells it to the best advantage, delivered in
sacks, soap boxes, etc., carelessly handled and bumped into town in a
lumber wagon. The merchant is loaded up with a lot of unsalable stuff
and often finds himself overloaded and barrels up some and sends it to
the commission row and expects some returns, which vary from nothing to
a very small amount. Why, last season I knew a large general merchandise
concern in a town a little west of Howard Lake that thought they had
struck a gold mine. They employed a packer or two, bought barrels,
rented a building and bought this class of stuff right and left, offered
at any old p