le that the Scotch pines in the forestry plantation owe
their comparatively good condition to the shelter they get from the hot
winds from being planted close together, and from the fact that they are
partly protected by the black pines planted to the west of them. The
single tree of Scotch pine above referred to has had garden cultivation
for thirty years, but it seems likely that it was injured by the same
hot winds that killed the white pine and the larch. The Scotch pine is a
native of Northern Europe, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Scotland, Normandy
(near the ocean) and Germany and Russia around the Baltic, and all these
countries have a moist, cool climate. The black pine is a native of
Southern Europe, growing all the way from Southern Spain to the Taurus
Mountains in Asia Minor. In its native habitat it has become accustomed
to the hot winds that often sweep across the Mediteranean, the burning
sirocco of the Great Sahara. The dwarf mountain pine, Pinus Montana,
grows in the Pyrenees, in the Alps, in the Carpathians and in the Balkan
Mountains, so that it, too, often encounters the hot winds that come
across from the African deserts. It is probable that the ability of the
black pine, the dwarf mountain pine, the Black Hills spruce, and the
rock pine to flourish on the prairies of Southwestern Minnesota is due
to the fact that all these trees have become accustomed to resisting the
hot, dry winds that often reach them in their native habitats.

The Norway spruce (Picea excelsa) in its many varieties is native to
almost the whole of Europe, extending from north of the Arctic Circle to
the Pyrenees and Balkan Mountains in Southern Europe. We could then
expect that trees from the Pyrenees or from the Balkans might be so well
accustomed to the hot winds from Africa as to make them resist, at least
for some time, the hot winds of the prairies. And they do seem to stand
better than the white spruce or the balsam fir or the white pine.

Some report should be made on the material sent out for trial from the
State Fruit-Breeding Farm. The strawberry, No. 1017, made a fine growth,
and promised a large crop of fruit in September, but a few days of quite
dry weather, following a very wet spell, ruined the crop at ripening
time.

The raspberry, No. 4, is a great producer of sprouts and multiplies
enormously, but it seems to be a rather shy fruiter, and the fruit is
not of the highest quality. It is intermediate in season. No. 5 i