Northwestern Horticultural Society. 259 



grafting into these, that by using the cions of certain varieties we 

 produce a good union and assimilation, and make a sound fruit- 

 ful t-ee with crab bodies and forks and common apple tops. 



The advantages of this method are very obvious in this north- 

 western country. First, it offers us an improvement of our fruits, 

 with the trees we now have. The Siberians, Transcendents and 

 Hislops have had their day, and are no longer wanted except in 

 very small quantities. One or two trees of each for canning or 

 preserving is all that any family will want to use when the hy- 

 brid or improved crabs, like the Early Strawberry, Whitney's No. 

 20, and Minnesota become known. Second, it suggests to us a 

 means of getting rid of the summer blight, which in its serious 

 phase is almost exclusively confined to the three sorts first named, 

 as the sorts to be grafted in are not themselves bad blighters, and 

 the crab growths are, by the process of grafting and pruning, en- 

 tirely removed. Thirdly, the grafting bids fair to extend our va- 

 rieties of apples in this severe climate by enabling us to use many 

 tender sorts, that upon their own bodies and forks would winter 

 kill too badly to make them profitable. 



What would seem to be common sense on this point agrees per- 

 fectly with our observation of known facts. Here is a thrifty 

 crab tree, sound at the root, sound in the body, and sound in the 

 forks. This condition is what we generally find until the summer 

 blight strikes the topmost limbs, and has had time to work down 

 into the body. Now, we will suppose that we have worked the crab 

 top all off by degrees, taking one, two or three years' time to do it, 

 according to its size, and have in its place a top of limbs of the 

 common apple, all joined to the crab above its forks. We have 

 certainly got the three weakest points of a tree perfectly hardy 

 and secured — namely, roots, body and forks. Now. what do we 

 further need in order to have the whole tree hardy? It is obvi- 

 ous that nothing is needed except to have the top ripen up its 

 new growth before winter sets in. Looking at the crab, we see 

 that it stops growing, and hardens itself up for winter in good 

 time. Something in its nature tells it that cold weather is com- 

 ing, and it proceeds to make itself ready for it. Its sap slows up, 

 or ceases in its flow, the cions and all parts of the season's growth 



