No. 7. DE/l'AKTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 549 



1885 to 1888 he was succeeded by Calvin Cooper, to whom I am 

 largely indebted for being called to the position of Pomologist of the 

 Department of Agriculture. At the meeting of the State Board at 

 Bethlehem, he was the member from Lancaster county, and Gov- 

 ernor Pattison the presiding officer. Mr. Cooper rose and offered 

 a resolution recommending my appointment to the position of Pom- 

 ologist of the Department of Agriculture. It was the happiest mo- 

 ment of my life, when, after the reading of this resolution it was 

 unanimously adopted. Governor Pattison requested Secretary Edge 

 that this resolution be sent to the Hon. J. Sterling Morton, Secre- 

 tary of the Department of Agriculture, with his strong personal en- 

 dorsement. My appointment hung fire for five months. My assis- 

 tant, Mr. Taylor, afterwards told me that Mr. Morton had told him 

 he had so many applicants for the position that he was in a quan- 

 dry whom to appoint. He sent for Mr. Taylor to come over to 

 his office one day, and directed him to write to Thomas Meehan, 

 regarding my qualifications. He was just about to write, when he 

 again received a message from Mr. Morton, saying he need not write, 

 that he had received a letter from Mr. Meehan, and I was appointed. 

 I wish I could tell you, ladies and gentlemen, of the little good I 

 was able to accomplish during the four years that I held the position. 

 As I have already said, I was instrumental in introducing the 

 Paragon chestnut into Virginia, and with the assistance of the Min- 

 ister to China, Mr. Denby, I introduced the cultivation of the Chinese 

 persimmon in this country. After bringing great pressure to bear 

 on the Chinese, Mr. Denby was finally able to secure some scions. 

 I instructed that the ends should be covered with paraffine, and cov- 

 ered with finely powdered charcoal, and sent to us. Upon opening 

 the tin cases, I found that the charcoal, instead of being finely pow- 

 dered was about the size of a hazlenut, or even an English walnut. 

 The following year we got Mr, Denby to send us another lot. This 

 time they came in the same style. Mr. Denby, however, sent a lot 

 of seeds from choice specimens that he had bought. These seeds were 

 propagated and we sent the trees to several different states, chiefiy 

 California and Florida, and from these seeds we have cultivated this 

 persimmon in this country. Again, my predecessor. Prof. Van Deman, 

 had wisely tried to secure from Sicily scions of citron trees. They 

 are very jealous of their fruits over there, and guard them carefully. 

 Instead of sending citron scions they sent the three varieties of their 

 most worthless lemons. Of course this fraud was detected when fruit 

 was produced in California and, perhaps, in Florida. 



Application having been made to me for scions of the true citron, 

 Secretary Morton directed me to obtain them through Prof. Fair- 

 child, who was in Europe studying the diseases of the coffee tree in 

 order to take charge of the coffee industry for the Dutch Govern- 

 ment in Java. 



We also conducted a series of experiments in different methods 

 of root grafting, at the suggestion of Secretary Morton, who was 

 a strong advocate of "whole-root" grafting. Selecting a dozen or 

 more of the varieties in general cultivation in the apple-growing states, 

 several hundred scions of these varieties were grafted on whole 

 roots, an equal number on the upper half, and an equal number on 

 the lower half of the seedling roots. These were all cultivated pre- 

 cisely alike and at the end of the first growing season an equal 



