416 ijoAiii) OK A(iin('ri,Tri{K. 



like thoni niuch hottor for this reason. It keops the trees from l)roaking 

 down. 



A Menibor: A uutuber of years ago I planted an orchard of about 

 eighty-five trees, and I got these trees of a nurseryman named Louis 

 Jones, a prominent member of this Society, and he had the idea that a 

 tree should head low. and in selecting my trees he made me this proposi- 

 tion, that he select the low headed and I should select what I wanted, and 

 we would see how they came out. Without a single exception when they 

 commenced to bear the ones without the center stem broke, or split in two, 

 and I immediately decided in favor of the center stem. I tliink your tree 

 will be safer, and I think under all circuaistances your tree will stand 

 better with a center stem. 



Mr. Collingwood: I can say in regard to his experience that when I 

 planted trees in this way I put the roots in hard ground, and I get a firm 

 body. I think there are advantages in having the center stem tree. I 

 have always been of the opinion, although I can not demonstrate it, that 

 many of the diseases that 1 might mention are simply the results of plant- 

 ing the tree. There have been one or two cases in Texas, and in two or 

 three of the other States in the South where trees planted in the String- 

 fellow way have proved healthier and have resisted blight better than 

 those planted with the roots. I have found that trees are .iust like ani- 

 mals. That they will take on a disease when they are not in a good condi- 

 tion that they would throw off if they were healthy. My theory is that 

 trees planted in this way have two sets of roots, one set of water roots, 

 and a set of feeding roots. They are quite distinct. If j'ou will plant a 

 tree and examine it in a year or two you will get a distinct idea of what 

 I mean. These trees never suffer from drought. I like to sow clover 

 and timothy together for they resist drought. These trees combine the 

 root habits of both. The timothy is a surface feeder, for the roots run 

 close to the surface, and the upper part of the soil will be dried out during 

 the long hot days. The clover roots go down into the ground and in spite 

 of the fact that the upper surface was all dried up and brown the clover 

 went on into the ground and never suffered a bit from not having mois- 

 ture. It will keep on growing. Now my idea in planting a tree like this 

 is to get a tree with a root very much like a clover plant, with long roots, 

 and spread out roots. When the tap roots start down there will be a 

 double system of roots. I have ti'aced the long water roots from five to six 

 feet. In sod most of its feeding, as you know, is in the upper foot of its 

 surface. It takes a great deal of water to feed a tree. I like broad, open 

 headed trees. For the first two or three years your cultivated trees will be 

 ahead of mine, but I am not raising wood, 1 am trying to raise fruit. I do 

 not want to stimulate the tree and make a wood growth, and then have to 

 cut two-thirds of it off. AVhat is the sense of it? We are not raising 



