DECEMBER MEETING. 225 



UORTICULTURE,— YESTERDAY, TO-DAY, AND TO-MORROW. 



In coni]);irinL,' the horticulture of the past and present, we assume that the 

 best presentation of the horticultural knowledge and skill of the period is to be 

 found in the current standard works on the subject. These, however, are so 

 volununous tliat the time of the entire session would be insullicient for the fair 

 consideration of even those of the past. 



As Michigan pomologists arc most particularly interested in the apple, that 

 kincf of fruits whicli has found in our beautiful Peninsula State so congenial a 

 home, Ave will take the culture of the apple in orchards as a type of the entire 

 range of horticultural subjects, and ask your attention first to the following 

 directions for such culture, taken from an English book published' about one 

 hundred and twenty years ago: "All the sorts of apples arc propagated by 

 grafting or budding upon the stocks of the same kind, for they will not take 

 upon any other sorts of fruit trees. There are three sorts of stocks generally 

 used ; the first are called free, and are raised from the kernels of all sorts of 

 apples indifferently, liut I should always prefer such stocks as are raised from 

 the kernels of crabs, because tliey will continue longer sound and will preserve 

 some of the best sorts of apples in their true size, color, and ilavor, whereas the 

 other free stocks produce larger fruit which are not so Avell tasted, nor will keep 

 so long, and I find several of the old writers on this subject of the same mind. 

 Mr. Austin, who wrote an hundred years ago says 'the stock whicli he counts 

 best for apple grafts is the crab, whicli is better than a winter apple tree to graft 

 on because they are usually free from canker, and will become very large trees, 

 and I conceive will last longer than stocks of sweeter apples, and will make 

 fruits more strong and hardy to endure frosts.' '"' 



(How does tliis, written over two hundred and twenty years ago, accord with a 

 recent advertisement headed "A New Departure," and which says "tiiat at 

 last it has been discovered by careful experiment that apple grafts on crab stocks 

 are so much hardier that the most tender varieties so worked will become iron- 

 clads capable of enduring the most severe northwestern winter?") 



"In the management of the nursery we should observe the following rules: 



''1st. That the soil in which you make the nnrsery be not better than that 

 Avhere the trees are to be j^lanted out for good. The not observing this is the 

 reason that trees arc often at a stand or make but little progress for three or 

 four years after they come from the nursery. Trees that are raised upon the 

 soil, and in the same degree of warmth, where they are to be planted will suc- 

 ceed much better than those brou2:ht from a o-reater distance and from a richer 

 soil. 



"2d. This ground ought to be fresh, and not such as has already been worn 

 out by trees or other large growing plants. 



" od. It ought not to be too wet, nor over dry, but rather of a middling nature, 

 although of the two extremes dry is to be preferred, because in such soils though 

 the trees do not make so great a progress as in moist, yet they are generally 

 sounder and more disposed to fruitfuhiess. 



"The method of raising stocks from the kernels of crabs is to procure them 

 where they are pressed for cider, and after they are cleaned of the pulp they 

 may be sown upon a bed of light earth, covering them over one half inch thick 

 with the same earth. Tliey may be sown in November or December, when the 

 ground is dry, but in wet it will be best to defer sowing until February, but 



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