APPENDIX. 231 



jjrowing section. The Spy is an ideal stoclv for the middle Atlantic states. 

 It is strong, healthy, clean-cut, and forms an unusually deep system of roots. 

 The Ben Davis is good, the Lilly of Kent very promising, and the Tallman 

 Sweet desirable for summer kinds. Although we have no direct evidence 

 on which to base the statement, we feel, on account of the interrelationship 

 of stock and scion, that winter stocks should be used for winter apples and 

 summer and fall stocks for varieties ripening in those seasons. 



It is frequently asked why seedling stocks should not be used on account 

 of their cheapness. If the cost of the trees is the only i)oint to be considered 

 in deciding on the stock, the seedlings would be chosen in preference to an 

 expensive variety. But the cost of the stock should be the least of the factors 

 that enter into a long-time orchard investment. Permanency is the first 

 essential. No two seedlings are alike. They differ in vigor, in hardiness, 

 in healthfulness, and in form just as named varieties do, and by using them 

 one of the chief reasons for top-working — the provision of a uniformly vigor- 

 ous, healthy body-is defeated. 



SELECTING THE BUDS. 



The buds for the permanent varieties can be selected from trees of 

 superior merit and used in the new orchard. Propagating buds are gener- 

 ally selected indiscriminately from bearing trees, from young trees, or from 

 nursery stock. The trees of an orchard, however, differ among themselves. 

 Heavy bearers, shy bearers, steady bearers, and erratic bearers may be 

 found in every orchard of the same variety. They differ also in their fruit, 

 some producing large, highly-colored apples, others small, dull specimens. 

 The foliage varies, too. I have seen a Spitzenberg carrying rich, green 

 leaves throughout the season when the surrounding Spitzenbergs were 

 brown with the apple-scab. And if the line of thought is carried further 

 the grower may observe differences of a similar kind in the branches of a 

 single tree. The tree is made up of a society of individuals with the bud as 

 the unit of the group, and it is a primary axiom that no individual in nature 

 is just like any other one. Sometimes there is such a striking variation in 

 a branch that it is profitable to propagate it as a new variety. Such was 

 the origin of the Cannon Early or Delaware peach of Delaware, the Banks 

 apple of Canada, and the Pierce grape of California, which originated on 

 ])ranches of the Montana Rose, the Gravenstein, and the Isabella. 



The indiscriminate cutting of buds for propagation is a prenicious prac- 

 tice that should be replaced by a more rational choice of bud selection. A 

 vigorous-growing, upright tree has been the ideal for fruitgrowers and nur- 

 serymen alike. Neither has concerned himself with the individuality of the 

 trees from which the buds are taken. In fact, much of the nursery stock is 

 propagated generation after generation from buds from the nursery row, lor 

 the commercial reason that nursery buds make larger trees and more of 

 them than buds from bearing trees. 



The individuality of a tree cannot be determined by the observation of a 

 single season. But when it has been shown, after several seasons of severe 

 comparison, that a heavy or regular-bearing tree is stable in its habit, then 



