A Member:  It has been mentioned that the frost this year killed the plum crop.  I noticed in my orchard previous to that frost when we had a snow storm, I noticed that the blossoms dried up and fell from the trees before that hard frost.  I think the question of success or failure with the Surprise, as with other plums, is sort of comparative.  I don’t know of any plum of the Americana type that we have a success with every year any more than any other.  So it is relative.  I would like to ask if anyone had the same experience with the blossoms drying and falling off the trees before that frost.

Mr. Crawford:  Perhaps the gentleman will recall the fact we had two nights in succession of quite severe frost.  The first night it was almost a freeze, and the second we had the snow storm which is given credit for the plum failure.

Mr. Anderson:  The gentleman who read the paper, he is from Winona, where he has a very much better location for any kind of fruit than the general run of the state.  The other gentleman is from Illinois.  Now, this good location near Winona and the temperature down in Illinois, does that favor the Surprise plum, and has it anything to do with their success and our failure?

Pres.  Cashman:  We will have to leave that to the audience.

Mr. S.D.  Richardson:  Down in Winnebago I got three trees from the originator of the Surprise plum, and while I was at the nursery I never saw any plums, but I propagated some from there and a man in our town has some Surprise plums from it, and since I left the nursery I think the man has had some plums from them.  I got them from Mr. Penning when they were first originated, but they never bore plums for me.  I had no other plums around there.  Perhaps if they need pollen from other plums they didn’t get it, and this man that has had the first success with them he had other plums near them.  Perhaps that is the secret.  The tree is hardy and good, and if you can get a crop of plums by having something else to fertilize them, the Surprise plum is all right.

Pres.  Cashman:  I think Mr. Richardson has struck the keynote to a certain extent, we must put them near another variety to pollenize them.

Northeast Demonstration Farm and Station.

W. J. THOMPSON, SUPT., DULUTH.

Last May the Station orchard was set out, the same consisting of about 516 apple trees with a fringe of cherries and plums.  The apples consisted of year old stock (purchased the year preceding and set in nursery rows) and included these six varieties:  Duchess, Patten’s Greening, Okabena, Wealthy, Hibernal, Anisim.  Good growth was made the past season and the stock went into winter quarters in good shape.  However, 20 per cent died, the loss being in this order:  Wealthy, Anisim, Hibernal, Pattens’ Greening—­Okabena and Duchess were tied for smallest loss.  In addition to the above, we made a considerable planting of small fruits, principally