Mr. Cook:  In my paper—­as they only allowed me fifteen minutes I had to cut it short, and I didn’t say very much about the brown rot.  All the Americana plums, and all varieties of plums I have ever grown, have in some way been susceptible to the brown rot, but some have been more resistant than others.  Now, that is one reason, I believe, why the DeSoto takes the lead.  It is less subject to the brown rot.  We have here a moist climate, and sunshine and dry atmosphere is the remedy, but some of these varieties have such a peculiar skin it is resistant to brown rot, and it seems certain, I don’t know, if it is not on account of the thick skin.  The Wolf has a thick skin and is subject to brown rot, but the DeSoto is not subject to that so much but more subject to the curculio.  The Japanese hybrid plums, Mr. Williams said at one time—­I saw in one of the reports—­that he had Japanese plums enough to grow fifty bushels of plums, but he generally only got a grape basket full.  He didn’t think very much of them.  In these sand cherry hybrids, I think Mr. Hansen has done all that man could do.

Mr. Ludlow:  What is the difference between the brown rot and the plum pocket fungus?

Mr. Cook:  Professor Stakman will tell you that in a later paper, but it is an entirely different disease.  The brown rot will work the season through.  It will commence on some varieties and work on the small plums and work on the plums half-grown and on the full-grown.  The plum pocket fungus, it works on the plums in the spring of the year and sometimes takes the whole crop.  The Terry plum, I think, a year ago, it took the whole crop.

Mr. Kellogg:  What is the best spray you know of, how often do you apply it and when?

Mr. Cook:  Which is that for, for the brown rot?

Mr. Kellogg:  Yes, for the plum generally.

Mr. Cook:  Oh, I don’t know of any.  Let me tell you something, the plum as a class is very susceptible to injury from sprays.  I know when Professor Luger was entomologist there was some talk of spraying plums for curculio, and some tried it, and while it generally got the curculio it killed the trees, and Professor Luger said that the foliage of the plum was the more susceptible to injury from arsenical poisoning than that of any other fruit in Minnesota.  The Japanese hybrid plums, I think, will take injury a little bit quicker than the native, and when you come to the sand cherry plums it is extremely dangerous to spray with anything stronger than rain water.

Prof.  Hansen:  I want to talk about the lime-sulphur.  We will probably have that in the next paper, only I want to say that seems to have taken the place of the Bordeaux mixture.  Brown rot, that is something that affects the peach men too.  In the state of Ohio in one year the peach men lost a quarter of a million dollars from the brown rot, the same rot that takes our plums.  We are not the only ones that suffer from the brown rot.  Well, they kept on raising peaches because they learned to control it, and if you are not going to spray I think you better give up.  As to trying to get something that won’t take the rot, it is something like getting a dog that won’t take the fleas. (Laughter.)