STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



57. 



carried to the top of the tree to the leaves through the white or inner 

 wood, therefore girdling does not prevent the sap from flowing upward, 

 but if girdled at certain times after the sap has flowed up, the tree will 

 die. Stripping will kill outright only when the tree is not in full sap, but 

 girdling lightly will not kill, perhaps, at any time. 



Mr. Wier. — I must take opposite ground from Mr. Kagan. I know 

 I can take the bark from a tree at any time and not kill it ; I can take all 

 the bark from a tree in June, and protect the tree from sun and air, and 

 it will heal. I sometimes find trees barked by mice in winter. I bank 

 them up with earth and the wound grows up all right. Considerable has 

 been said about being careful not to injure the white wood; you can cut 

 out a portion of the white wood and yet the wound will heal. It is a 

 mistaken idea that bark is formed by building along the cells at the edges 

 of the wound ; it is a granulated exudation from the white wood beneath. 

 I had fruit on an Early Harvest tree which the mice and rabbits had 

 barked for eighteen inches up from the ground, which was very fine, and 

 it also ripened two weeks earlier. 



A Voice. — What became of the tree? Did it heal up? 



Mr. Wier. — No, it died. (Laughter.) 



Dr. Schrceder. — I don't want it to go out among the people that 

 we are in the doctoring business. The State Society should discounten- 

 ance all this business. Here it is: the trees don't bear; what is the 

 matter? May-be they are debilitated from some cause; what do we do? 

 Why, we do as the old-time doctors u.sed to do — stick in the steel and let 

 out a little more of his life, as though he was not near enough dead 

 already. (Laughter.) 



The first day of this meeting some of those girdling ^' fellers^' 

 wanted to kick out some of the varieties of apples because they didn't 

 bear, and here they are to-day giving us a sure remedy for the trouble, 

 something certain to make them bear. (Prolonged laughter.) 



I have tried it on grapes, and they die, every time ; I have made big 

 bunches by girdling, but fruit was no better. That is how I got the big 

 bunches that made your eyes stick out when I showed them at State 

 fairs, and you all wondered "how in the world did the Doctor raise 

 them?" (Laughter.) 



If we must have trees girdled, why don't we let the little borer do it 

 for us? He will do it without pay, only his board. But as soon as the 

 little fellow gets at it, doing it for us, we go for him with a sharp stick. 

 (Laughter.) It is bad business to plant trees and then doctor them. 

 We don't want trees if we have got to eternally doctor them. 



