SECRETARY'S REPORT. 161 



is not grafted above the ground. Thej are not only hardier but 

 have roots to sustain them when they come into bearing and are 

 of large size. This is one reason why so many trees now to be 

 seen in the West that have been planted with these root cuttings 

 are dying out in winter. Not only have they this objection, but 

 they are nearly all more or less lurched over from the effect of the 

 winds, and whoever plants them will be disappointed sooner or 

 later. 



It is not necessary now, if it ever was, to buy trees of travel- 

 ling pedlars who have no fixed place of residence or respectabil- 

 ity, and who are generally ignorant men, scarcely knowing the 

 name of one tree from another, except what the circulars which 

 they carry give them. I would again advise every person to send 

 to a respectable nui'seryman who will send them trees correct to 

 name, who have reputation at stake, and who are generally com- 

 petent to j'.idge as to the varieties which are best adapted to the 

 locality the purchaser lives in. I am satisfied that more loss and 

 disappointment have been caused by pedlars selling worthless 

 trees than would have sufficed to plant the whole Western States. 

 In place of this they have now to begin and replant all the ground 

 planted from 1850 to 1855." * 



Grafting. The uses of grafting are many and various. The 

 chief one is to change the head of a tree bearing inferior fruit, or 

 of uncertain chai'acter, to another known to be desirable. We can 

 in this way propagate choice varieties with an ease and rapidity 

 impossible by any other method. By it we can also render dwarf 

 certain fruit trees by working them upon different but kindred 

 stocks which are of slower growth, and thereby attain valuable re- 

 sults ; as with the apple upon the paradise stock, and the pear upon 

 the quince stock. Seedling fruits, or those known to be usually 

 tardy in bearing", can be fruited much sooner by grafting them upon 

 the limbs of grown trees of the same species. 



Not least among its uses, is its enabling us to grow successfully 



* While revising proof, an article is observed in Hovey's Magazine of Horticul- 

 ture, ■yrritten by a resident of Rochester, New York, stating at some length what 

 may be said both for and against the practice of root grafting, and I quote a sen- 

 tence or two as containing the pith and point of it. '.' Its princ^al advantage is to 

 </ie 7iwrser7/ma« in economizing labor," &c. * * * " The disadvantages of this 

 mode of propagation /aZZ chiefly upon the orchardist,^^ &c. Nothing could be more 

 frank and to the point than this. 

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