386 ILLINOIS STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



complete the entire heads of the trees. I like this method better than any I have ever 

 tried for grafting large trees, as it gives the grafts a good opportunity to get vv^ell started. 

 Cutting off and grafting the top first, gives the grafts there the best possible chance, 

 while the necessary reduction of the top throws the sap into the remaining side branches, 

 which fits them well for grafting the following year; and, the third year, the lowest 

 branches, being made ready in the same way, may be grafted successfully. 



" By this mode it will be seen that, when the grafts are put in on the side branches, 

 they are not shaded by the heavy shoots above them, and they have an unusual supply 

 of nourishment to carry them forward. 



" Those who have attempted to graft the whole head of a large tree at once are 

 best aware of the great diffiulty in the common mode of getting the grafts to take on the 

 side limbs. 



"One of these large trees so treated is probably more than sevenly-five years old, 

 and has now an entirely new and vigorous head, grafted with this excellent variety. 

 When I began with it, the fruit was only fit for cider, and it was questionable whether 

 the tree should not be cut down. By grafting it in this manner, I have added surpris- 

 ingly to its value. Two years ago (the bearing year), I obtained from it ten bushels of 

 apples; last year eight bushels; and this year (only six years from the time I began to 

 graft it), I gathered twenty-eight and a half bushels of excellent fruit. I consider this 

 tree now worth one hundred dollars; the cost of grafting it was about five dollars, and 

 the latter was all repaid two years ago — the first season the grafts bore fruit." 



We also have some younger trees, very hardy, but not suited to 

 our locality for producing fruit. The Winesap is an instance of this — a 

 very valuable tree in Central Illinois, Missouri and other localities, but a 

 shy bearer of small, scabby fruit in the northern tier of counties of Illinois 

 and in Southern Wisconsin. 



The White Winter Pearmain is like the Winesap as to hardiness and 

 scabbing in our locality. The Yellow Bellflower, so choice as a pie fruit, 

 bears but little, and so far as we have seen is hardy. The Perry and 

 Golden Russets give us very little fruit. Trees like the above, with well- 

 proved seedlings, of not less than ten or fifteen years old, or a surplus of 

 Duchess and well-rooted Fameuse, or others as hardy, may be used as 

 stocks on which to place almost any eastern kind that will bear well and 

 not drop the fruit badly. On such trees we can top-graft the Rambo, 

 Swaar, Baldwin, Twenty Ounce, Fall Pippin, Hubbardson's Nonsuch, 

 Jewett's Red, Maiden's Blush, Porter, Mother, Pound Sweet, Red Canada, 

 Roxbury Russet, Williams' Favorite, Smoke-house, Sweet Bough and 

 Wood's Greening. 



The Yellow Bellflower has the reputation of bearing, if top-grafted 

 on some other variety. 



You can get the fruit of the Northern Spy in about six years, as a top- 

 graft. 



There is in Walworth county, Wisconsin, an orchardist who has been 

 top-grafting, eastern varieties for many years. I recently visited his 

 orchard and saw his bearing Baldwin trees, and he assured me that he 

 had gathered fourteen bushels from one tree in one season ; and his trees 

 have gone safely through our late severe winters. 



My Baldwin grafts have gone safely through our winters ; also about 

 fifty Twenty Ounce grafts, while iny neighbor's bearing tree, from which 

 I cut my grafts, root-killed. 



