A Member:  You mentioned Davis as your first variety.  What is the second one?

Mr. Marien:  The Wardwell Kidney.  We always plant the two varieties at the same time because if we strike a wet season then the Davis does well, and the Wardwell won’t do as well in wet weather but will do better in dry weather.

Mrs. Glenzke:  Will you tell me the color of your beans?  Are they golden wax?

Mr. Marien:  Yes, some golden wax and some green string beans.  We haven’t as good a market for the green ones.

Mrs. Glenzke:  Have they a string on the back?

Mr. Marien:  Some have and some have not.  There is the Bountiful, or the Thousand to One; that is a small green string bean that hasn’t any string.  But they are very hard to pick; so we don’t raise many of them.

Mrs. Glenzke:  Have you ever tried Golden Pod?

Mr. Marien:  I think that is a wax bean?

Mrs. Glenzke:  Yes.

Mr. Marien:  Oh, we don’t like them, at least not on the St. Paul market, because they are hard to pick.  I don’t know how it is in the Minneapolis market.

A Member:  What is the best of the green kind?

Mr. Marien:  We find that the Bountiful is a very good bean; and then there is also the Red Valentine.

A Member:  Did you ever grow any Crusset Wax?

Mr. Marien:  No, sir, I have not.  Of course, there are some kinds that are just the same, but they go under different names in different places.  Different catalogs will catalog the same seeds in a different way.

* * * * *

BEWARE BLIGHT CURES.—­Almost every year orchardists are persuaded to try some new, so-called “blight cure” or preventative, only to find later that they have wasted time and money in the experiment.  Government regulations regarding fake remedies of this character are more strict than formerly, but there are still some agents trying to dupe the public into buying their wares.

Blight, which is often referred to as apple blight, fire blight, or pear blight, is caused by bacteria which live in the sap of the tree, and the principle followed by the blight-doctor is to introduce something into the sap which will prevent the working of the bacteria.  The remedies are applied in various ways.  Sometimes the trunk is painted with a mixture of some kind, or holes are bored into the trunk and these filled with a powder.  The orchardist is sometimes furnished with a box of nails as the first “course” and instructed to drive these into the roots of the trees.

It is evident that anything introduced into the sap that is strong enough to kill the bacteria living there will likewise damage the cell tissue of the tree, and result in more harm than benefit.  One powder that has been brought to the attention of the Experiment Station, sells for $3.00 per pound, and is administered in teaspoonful “doses.”  Such a preparation as this is probably harmless, but is a waste of time and money.  It would have no effect on the tree or the blight.