126 Wisconsin State Horticultural Society. 



you a part of the report of D. K. Waters, Spring Lake, Mich. He 

 says his neighbor, Thos. Petty, had imposed upon him fifty al- 

 mond trees for peach, and although the peach all around these 

 fifty trees bad been root killed, not one of these almond trees has 

 suffered. He asks, as a remedy against root killing, does not this 

 experience suggest to nurserymen that it might be valuable to bud 

 the peach on the almond stock? 



A few words in regard to root killing in Wisconsin, Northern 

 Illinois and Minnesota, in 1872-3, will close the root question at 

 present. The Galena Advertiser, in speaking of the nurserymen, 

 said the severe winter of 1872-3 wiped out a large percentage of 

 their stock. C. H. Greenman said large numbers of fruit trees 

 and vines were entirely killed during the winter of 1872-3. The 

 list of Ironclads were no exception to the wholesale destruction. 

 Chas. M. Hambright said, "I might add that, side by side in our 

 yearling seedling block, the common apple seedlings were ninety- 

 five per cent, killed, but not one of the crab, with about the same 

 proportion of loss in our three and four year old grafts." My own 

 experience agrees fully with Mr. Hambright's statement. And I 

 will add that we had about one hundred Tetofski grafted on apple 

 roots ; not more than six survived, while twenty-five of that kind 

 budded in the tops of seedling crabs, came through all right. My 

 mind is settled that the crab root is hardy. But our flankers say 

 it dwarfs the standard, and Mr. Kellogg has put it in his Chapter 

 of Humbugs. 



Now, let us go back a little to the record. At the winter meet- 

 ing, 1875, I think, I exhibited two Price's Sweet trees, one of 

 them grown from a graft made for us by J. S. Stickney, and 

 among the best ; the other grafted by us on crab root, this last 

 equal or superior. Then Mr. Stickney said he was surprised at 

 the samples of growth, and he hoped it would continue to de- 

 velop. He thought it was worthy of extended trial. His expe- 

 rience had been that it tended to dwarf growth. Now, this ex- 

 tended trial that Mr. Stickney thought it worthy of, is just what 

 we are making, and the encouragement we are getting from the 

 society is nothing but condemnation. This has gone so far that 

 we are met by some of those who read your transactions, with 



