SECRETARY'S REPORT. 159 



Mr. Williams being called upon to state his views upon the sub- 

 ject, said lie " had paid attention to it for several years ; this year 

 had spent much time in visiting orchards and making observations. 

 lie b'ilieved that for the orchardist, trees worked standard high are 

 better worth one dollar a tree, than to plant rootgrafted trees, 

 receiving them and a dollar with each tree as a gratuity. Is 

 acquainted with an orchard containing rootgrafted trees fifteen 

 years old — have never borne well, some of them never an app^e. 

 Other trees, budded from them, in the same orchard, have borue 

 good crops for seven years.". 



Mr. T. T. Lyon, in the Michigan Farmer, says: "It has long 

 been urged by fruit growers upon prairies that rootgrafted trees 

 are less hardy than seedlings, but never till the present season 

 have wo, in this region, witnessed occular proof to that efiect. 

 /From tlic result of this year's experience, it is also clear that some 

 varieties are less hardy than others, for while rootgrafted trees of 

 some varieties have s^iffered severely, topgrafted trees of these va- 

 rieties have escaped entirehj." 



From the Iowa Farmer wc take the following: " Jndge Green, 

 of Cedar Rapids, has an extensive orchard of several thousand 

 trees, mostly root grafts, planted five or six years since, in rows a 

 quarter of a mile long, and extending from near the top of a ridge 

 down a southern slope and across a gently inclined flat or bottom. 

 * * * -t Tjip Judge, being an Eastern man, had very naturally 

 secured a large number of Baldwins, Greenings, Spitzenbergs, 

 Eoxbury Russets, &c., perhaps most of which were planted on the 

 low ground. Here they struggled on up to last winter, mostly 

 living, but not doing as well as the same sorts up the slope. Thus 

 standing, that trial winter came, and completely finished up and 

 wiped out nearly every tree of the more tender sorts, making sad 

 inroads upon the appearance and profitableness of the orchard. 

 Trees of the tender kinds, up the. slope were not indeed all killed 

 outright, and should our seasons prove favorable fur a term of years, 

 they ni;iy possibly bring some fruit yet ; but it would seem impos- 

 ble for them to become permanentl}^ vigorous. Scarce a variety 

 that we noticed, not even the hardiest, had done as well on the low 

 as on the high ground. Of several tender or half-hardy sorts on 

 the slope, where a particei'e root grafted and a part budded on seed- 

 lings, in every case that we vo'.iced, the latter ivere the most hardy and 

 vigorous." 



