Mr. Norwood:  My experience is something like this man’s.  I have had my plums killed off as many as five years with the plum pocket and then had a good crop of plums.  I sprayed with lime-sulphur.

Mr. Stakman:  When did you spray?

Mr. Norwood:  I spray just before the buds open.

Mr. Stakman:  The flower or leaf?

Mr. Norwood:  Flower, and then I spray when the plums are well started, just before they begin to ripen.

Mr. Stakman:  Were you spraying for the pocket or brown rot?

Mr. Norwood:  I used lime-sulphur and arsenate of lime.

Mr. Stakman:  Of course, spraying after buds open wouldn’t do any good for the plum pockets at all.

Mr. Norwood:  I spray mainly for the brown rot, and I have pretty good luck.

Mr. Cashman:  Have you had any experience in using orchard heaters to save plums in cold nights?

Mr. Stakman:  I will ask Mr. Cady to answer that.

Mr. Cady:  No, I haven’t tried to use them.

Mr. Cashman:  We tried it this year, and we saved our plum crop.  We have tried it the last four years and saved our plum crop each year.  We also sprayed each year and had a very good crop of plums when neighbors who had not sprayed had very few, and I am satisfied if we use the proper ingredients and spray properly at the right time, and occasionally use an orchard heater when there is any danger of freezing, that we will raise a good crop of most any plum that is hardy enough for this climate.

A Member:  What kind of heaters do you use?

Mr. Cashman:  We use oil heaters.  We use crude oil, the same oil we use in our tractor engine.

A Member:  Where do you buy your heaters?

Mr. Cashman:  We have them made at the hardware store, of sheet iron, with a cover.  We put about two gallons of oil in this heater.  There is a small piece of waste that is used as a wick, which we light from a torch.  It will heat quite a large space sufficiently for two or three hours and prevent frost.

Mrs. Glenzke:  Do you put a canvas over the tree or leave it uncovered?

Mr. Cashman:  We do not put anything over the tree.

Mr. Stakman:  What does your oil cost?

Mr. Cashman:  About eight or nine cents a gallon.

Prof.  Hansen:  Just a thought occurred to me that out west on the Pacific coast where men have to get down to business in order to raise fruit they have these horticultural commissioners that have absolute police power to make orchard men clean up.  They will come into your old orchard and pull it up and burn it and add it to your taxes, charge it up to you, if you don’t clean up.  The same sort of police power should prevail here.  If a man has an old plum orchard that is diseased through and through, it won’t do for him to tell his tale of woe year after year and not do anything.  A county agent will come along and clean it up for him.  After it is cleaned up it will be an easier proposition.  If you are not going to keep up with the times and spray, then the county agent ought to have police power to burn the orchard.  Either spray or go out of the plum business.