420 .STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Greening, Swaar, Baldwin, Red Canada, Fall Pippin and a score or two of 

 the old sorts found a home in the new orchards, only to prove in the end a 

 disajipointment and a loss. While this particular region has suffered in a 

 marked degree the loss of crop after crop from these causes, the more favored 

 parts of the State have been by no means exempt from suggestions of 

 impending failure from the premature death of thousands of trees of the 

 leading varieties and the failure of others to longer produce paying crops. 



WKONG METHODS OF PROPAGATION. 



The first orchard set out by the writer, over forty years ago, gave him 

 peculiar advantages for observing the comparative merits of the several 

 methods of propagating apple trees, and his long-time experiences as a nurs- 

 eryman have uniformly proved the correctness of his conclusions from these 

 experiences, that root-grafted trees are unfruitful and not hardy as compared 

 with top-grafted or top-budded trees. He foresaw the impending disaster to 

 the fruitgrowing interests of all the west from this cause alone, and at the 

 first meeting of the Northwestern Fruitgrowers' Association held in Chicago, 

 he gave the first note of warning and presented before the members of that 

 association, mostly nurserymen, the facts of his experience. He then and 

 there prophesied that before twenty years should go by, the unwisdom, not to 

 say the criminal folly, of the almost universal method, that of root-grafts, 

 would be made plain to the dullest apprehension. It was difiicult to get a 

 patient hearing upon this subject at that time, as the cheapest method of 

 producing trees was the popular method, as it is still, I believe, in the majori- 

 ty of the large commercial nurseries that supply most of the trees to the 

 west. And this method, it must be confessed, is fostered by the almost uni- 

 versal ignorance of tree-planters, making it easily possible for the tree-peddler 

 not only to impose upon his customers the cheap trees, but worthless varieties 

 as well — varieties that would still be worthless though grown after the best 

 method. 



And as to best methods: While the practice is still largely that of root- 

 grafts, the more intelligent planters discard the trees so grown, especially as 

 regards the leading popular sorts, as the Baldwin, Eed Canada, Greening, 

 King and many others. The method alone to be safely followed here, and 

 the one approved by the highest pomological authority, is that of grafting on 

 entirely hardy stocks at standard hight; and until we have varieties that shall 

 have j)roved as hardy for our more trying climate as the most hardy of the 

 old sorts have proved in their native home at the east, this is the only method 

 that holds out any promise of success in the future to the fruitgrowers of 

 Michigan, in even the more favored parts of the State. 



But nurserymen still hold and will to the cheap methods, until a more thor- 

 ough knowledge and a more careful practice prevails among planters. Then 

 the cheap trees will go begging — no one will be found to take them as a gift. 

 Then, though the first cost will be doubled, the real value of the trees will be 

 increased a hundred fold. If there are any who feel disposed to cavil and say 

 I put it too strong, let them come with me and go through a score or two of 

 orchards in Cass county that I know all about. I Avill point them to trees, 

 both of the same variety, one a root-graft the other a top-graft or top-budded 

 tree, the first of which has not borne one-fourth the apples of the other since 

 they were set out, thirty or forty years ago. And I will point them out trees 



