Annual Report, 1915, Vice-President, Second Congressional District.

JOHN BISBEE, MADELIA.

A summer remarkable in many respects has passed.  Many of our people have labored hard, and the rewards of that labor have been meager and unsatisfactory.  Horticulture with all the other labors on the land has been rewarded like the other cultivators of the soil in our section of the state.  I sent out twenty-five of the circulars and twenty were filled out and returned.

Apple raisers report, four a good crop, the balance poor or none.

Plums:  One fair, others poor or none.

Cherries:  One good, all others poor.

Grapes:  One good, balance poor to none.

Blackberries:  One good, balance poor to none.

Other fruits all poor.

Nursery stock:  One place reports one car load planted, the balance a few, all making good growth.

Strawberries:  Five report good crop, balance few to poor.

Blight:  Some reported but little efforts made to eradicate.

Fruit trees did not suffer much last winter (1914-5).  All report plenty of moisture in ground.

Varieties of apples doing best:  Wealthy, Duchess, Longfield, Salome,
Spitzenberg, Northwestern Greening, Anisim, Malinda, Hibernal, Jonathan.

Spraying neglected very largely.

I am doing all of the top-working I can get done every spring.

Am setting largely the Salome.  I find the tree hardy here; a moderate bearer; apples fine and handsome; a good keeper; tree does not blight and grows very thriftily.  It grows on a great share of the stocks in which I have placed it.

My next best apple is the Spitzenberg.  I am not placing many Wealthy scions, as I have about all I want of them.

I tried thinning the fruit on some of my heavy bearers last summer and like it much.  I think the best way to do it is to cut out the fruit spurs, as that can be done in the winter.

Annual Report, 1915, Vice-President, Fifth Congressional District.

CHAS. H. RAMSDELL, MINNEAPOLIS.

The horticultural interests of the Fifth Congressional District (of which Minneapolis is the largest part) comprise three lines of activity, the raising of fruit, vegetables and flowers for home supply and profit, ornamental horticulture for pleasure and the city marketing of the produce of this and every other region, furnishing whatever is demanded by a large metropolitan market.  Therefore, I will report along these lines.

[Illustration:  Chas. H. Ramsdell.]

Judging from the reports of my correspondents throughout the country, the “freeze” in May was responsible for a rather complete absence of local fruit the past season.  Sheltered orchards and those on the south side of any lake bore a small crop.  Of apples, the Wealthy and Malinda are mentioned as bearing fairly well.  Plums were entirely a failure, cherries are not raised to any extent, grapes and small fruits were not enough to supply the market as a whole.  Raspberry and strawberry growing seems to be on the decline, owing to the prevalence of insect pests which do not receive attention to keep them in check.  The importance of this is all the more apparent, because with the shorter distances of this district being the rule, the danger from rapid spread is more pronounced.