MUTUAL INFLUENCE OP THE STOCK AND GRAFT. 109 



on those grafted on the English Paradise. " The same difference was 

 observed the preceding year, though whether or not that was the first 

 year of flowering is not stated — and there is no statement as to follow- 

 ing years. Mr. Stole, the Director of the Pomological Institute of Proskau, 

 writing in the Monatsschrift fur Pomologie for March, 1876, on this 

 subject, recommends grafting pears on apple stocks. The main advant- 

 age of this stock is early productiveness. He states, however, that such 

 trees are not long-lived. l 



A. S. Fuller says (Horticulturist, Vol. XXIII, 1868, p. 75): "Early 

 or late maturity or productiveness being characteristic of different varieties, 

 the stock will therefore hasten or delay fruiting." 



Patrick Barry says ("Fruit Garden," p. 19): "An apple tree on a 

 common stock planted out in ordinary orchard soil does not usually bear 

 until it is in most cases seven years old from the bud, often more; whilst 

 the same variety grafted or budded on a Paradise apple stock will produce 

 in two or three years at most. " 



N. A. Beecher of Michigan says (Report Mich. Board Ag., 1889, p. 

 452): "Apples that are feeble in growth and tender should be grafted on 

 some hardy, vigorous stock, like the Lyscom, Northern Spy, or Talman 

 Sweet, when two or three years old. It is difficult to ascertain whether 

 the graft has more influence on the stock or the stock on the graft. In 

 most cases the stock seems to have the controlling influence, in others it 

 is exactly the reverse. Some twenty years ago I set out fifty seedlings, 

 three years old; two years later they were top-grafted to Red Canada; 

 twelve of them died and were replaced with Northern Spy. In the same 

 plat of ground I whip-grafted three Lyscoms, two years old, at the time 

 that I grafted on the seedlings, and today they are much larger and 

 stronger than those grafted on the seedling stock, and are exceedingly 

 uniform in size and shape, while those on seedling stock vary in size, 

 shape, and vigor, some being quite strong and others dwarfish; a few, in 

 time, died outright, and the remainder range from fair to good. The best 

 of those top-grafted on seedling stock measure now two feet nine inches 

 in circumference, while the three Lyscoms, top-grafted to Canada Red, 

 measure respectively three feet seven and one half inches, three feet six 

 inches, and three feet six inches in circumference. The reason why I 

 prefer Lyscom as a stock to the Northern Spy or Talman Sweet, is that it 

 is just as hardy and is a much stronger grower in root and branch. In 

 fact, it will produce more root in a given space of time than any other 

 variety I ever propagated. It is just as necessary to improve the hardiness 

 of tender varieties by top-grafting as it is to improve feeble growers by 

 the same means." 



Mr. B. Hathaway - of Michigan, gives several examples in which apples 

 came earlier into bearing as stock-grafts and buds than as root-grafts. 

 In the cases where a difference in the size of the trees was noted, the root- 

 grafted trees were the larger. After the trees had attained a proper age, 

 however, he had seen no difference in productiveness that could be attrib- 

 uted to the difference in the method of propagation. It is well known by 

 nurserymen that a scion taken from a young tree which has never fruited 

 will be hastened in its growth when grafted on a mature tree and bear 

 sooner than it would if it had been left to itself. Still it is generally 



i Quoted in The Garden, Vol. IX, 1876, p. 351. 



2 Report of the Michigan State Board of Agricultnre, 1871, pp. 124-6. 



