Mr. Ludlow:  I want to ask if you recommend the bamboo poles for general propping of trees?

Mr. Simmons:  Yes, sir; most emphatically I would.  It is the best and most economical prop you can use.  Of course, it is the general opinion among expert fruit growers that the crop should never be too heavy for the tree.  The bamboo prop is the best we found.  With reasonable care, bamboo poles will outlast common lumber.

It is the general opinion among expert fruit growers that the tree should carry all fruit possible, but should not be permitted to be loaded so heavy as to need propping.

Mr. Dyer:  I have an orchard of 70 acres and it would take a great many bamboo poles to prop that orchard.  I use pieces of board, various lengths, 4 inches wide and 1 inch thick, of various lengths.  I get them 14 to 16 feet long and sometimes I cut them in two.  My trees are large, twenty-five and thirty and thirty-five years old, and that has been my most successful material to prop with.

Mr. Simmons:  What is the cost?

Mr. Dyer:  Well, you know what the lumber is, I paid about $24.00 a thousand.

Mr. Simmons:  When I tried to buy the props from the lumber yard they would have cost me twenty cents each.  I bought the twenty foot bamboo poles for $7.00 a hundred and the sixteen foot poles for $4.50 a hundred.

A Member:  I didn’t get where his orchard is located, and I would like to ask about the variety of apples he had the best success with.

Mr. Simmons:  The orchard is located at Howard Lake, forty-three miles west of Minneapolis.  We grow Duchess, Patten’s Greenings, Hibernals and Wealthys.

Mr. Ludlow:  What is your average cost per tree for thinning?

Mr. Simmons:  We have for years thinned the Wealthy trees and our top-worked varieties, but I never kept any accurate account of the cost of thinning.

Mr. Ludlow:  How old are your Wealthys?

Mr. Simmons:  Fourteen years old.

Mr. Huestis:  Mr. Simmons stated that he used the wire and the ring and the screw-eyes.  If he used that, why does he need props?  I used the same thing this summer on some Wealthys and thinned them besides, and I didn’t need any props because I used the wire from the center ring to the branches.

Mr. Simmons:  Well, the wire supports support the main limbs but there are a great many laterals.  For instance, you have the main limb going up here at an angle of 90 degrees and the limbs that come out of that are not supported.  The props I use are supporting the laterals.

Mr. Anderson:  Are your returns satisfactory shipping to the Minneapolis market?

Mr. Simmons:  Always have been very satisfactory; that has been my only market.

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FIGHTING MOTHS WITH PARASITES.—­Over 12,000,000 specimens of two parasites which prey on the gipsy moth and brown-tail moth were released in 201 towns in Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Rhode Island during the fall of 1914 and spring of 1915, according to the annual report of the Bureau of Entomology, United States Department of Agriculture.