]S"ew York Agkicultural Experiment Station. 529 



3rd. The cost of trees would be vastly increased if nnrser^Tiien 

 were required to bud from or to go back every few generations 

 to bearing trees. Opportunities for dishonest practices would be 

 greatly multiplied. The advertisements of some who sell " pedi- 

 greed " stock are an insult to an intelligent man and are only a 

 foretaste of what we shall have if fruitgrowers force nurserymen 

 to compete in selling " pedigreed " stock. 



4th. It is the experience of those who have taken buds from 

 bearing trees that the resulting nursery plants lack vigor, and 

 remain weaklings for several years. 



5th. If pedigreed trees become the vogue, tree-growing must 

 become a petty business. Clinuite and environment would permit 

 nurserymen who are growing pedigreed stock to propagate only 

 a half dozen varieties of any fruit. Xot more than this number 

 of sorts is so pre-eminently adapted to any one geographical region 

 as to give good mother trees. 



fith. Fruit trees are not sufficiently well fixed in their characters 

 to make selection from single " best " trees worth while even 

 should their characters be transmissible. Thus, trees in many 

 cases do not show their best attributes until late in life ; or to the 

 contrary fail as they grow older; or are affected for better or 

 worse by moisture, food, or physical conditions of soil in certain 

 seasons ; or insects and fungi may give them a variable and un- 

 certain standing. A nurseryman with the best intentions might 

 thus propagate from a prepossessing tree only to find later that 

 he and his customers had been deceived. 



7th. Heritable variations can be told only by growing the parts 

 bearing them — by studying the offspring, not the ancestor ; by 

 (looking forward, not backward. This is impossible in the nurserv^ 

 In conclusion, the burden of proof is upon those who advocate 

 pedigreed trees, for the present practices of propagating fruit 

 plants are justified by the precedents of centuries. Experimenters 

 in this field encourage us to believe that they may sometime 

 illumine the darkness but one cannot see by the lights they have 

 thus far brought. " The assertion that outstrips the evidence is 

 a crime" in this case as in any other. Let us have real, precise, 

 abundant evidence before demanding a reform that will revolu- 

 tionize nursery practices. 



