184 State Horticultural Society. 



observation of every member of this Society on a larger or smaller 

 scale. I have in mind the case of a man who now buys his tr.ees of me. 

 A few years ago the home nursery was too small a concern for him. 

 He imagined that the proprietor was behind the times ; that there were- 

 up-to-date methods of propagation of which that benighted gentleman 

 had never heard. My friend, moreover, had a large heart, a large head 

 and a large pocket-book. In fact, there was nothing small or "chinchy" 

 about him, so when the representative of one of our large nurseries came 

 along, the combination was complete and of course business was trans- 

 acted. Said representative sold him enough trees of Ben Davis, so 

 called, to plant about ten acres. The price was what most of us would 

 call exorbitant, but my friend of the large dimensions believed thor- 

 oughly in sacrificing means to gain ends, and so no words were bandied, 

 about the price. The trees on delivery were a nice appearing lot and 

 proved conclusively to my friend's mind that there was no fake about 

 improved methods of propagation. He planted the trees and cared for 

 them faithfully for a number of years till they came into bearings 

 and then the painful conclusion was forced upon him that he had been 

 beaten by the nursery. 



He was not much of an expert on varieties but he concluded the 

 fruit borne by his trees could not be Ben Davis. It was not the color 

 af Ben Davis, nor the shape of Ben Davis, and did not ripen with Ben 

 Davis. In fact it ripened in the summer. He wrote the nursery 

 rather forcibly about it intimating something about a law suit. The 

 nursery replied that they were very sorry if they had made a mistake, 

 but by way of paying him for all his trouble and loss of time they 

 offered to top-graft his trees with one of their newest and highest 

 priced varieties — a great acquisition. My friend swallowed the bait 

 and told them to come on. They forthwith sent a young fellow who- 

 very quickly reduced the limbs to stumps and top-grafted them very 

 copiously. Sometime after that while passing his place my friend 

 asked me to stop and take a look at his orchard. 



I found that the grafting had been done in a very careless way 

 and that not one in a hundred would live. I have not seen the orchard 

 since, but it is safe to say it will never amount to anything. The 

 situation was splendid for an orchard, the soil was good, the cultiva- 

 tion and pruning had been correctly done, but the variety proved 

 worthless for the purpose intended and the whole undertaking was. 

 a failure. In this case the man knew the variety he wanted, but 

 through the mistake or dishonesty of the nurseryman he suffered loss. 

 There are other cases where the man does not know what he wants.. 

 or rather does not exercise good judgment in selecting the variety. 



