Miscellaneous. 383 



Really, what good is there in getting a tree to root deeply and then run 

 a tree digger through the nursery row that only cuts eight or ten inches 

 deep? What good will the tap root do the tree if it is cut off and left 

 where the tree grew in the nursery? The story that Downing said the 

 crown of the seedHng is the seat of life in the tree is simply a garbled 

 statement, and has no foundation. It is an old and well established say- 

 ing that "the scion ever over-ruleth the stock." Each variety has a root 

 system peculiar to itself. Whitney crab, Xo. 2, has a strong, deep, well 

 braced root system, while the root system of the Winesap is scant and 

 irregular, and so on through the entire list of apples, which evidently 

 must be caused by the influence exerted by the scion on the stock or roots. 



I once bought six thousand whole-root grafts of a whole root nursery. 

 The roots averaged about half the size of a lead pencil and were from 

 four to six inches in length. I paid an extra price for the grafts, but I 

 believe the roots were culls. The trees grown from this lot of grafts 

 were in no way superior either in strong, deep roots or well formed bodies. 

 In fact, they made an unusual per cent of unsalable trees. My next plant 

 was both crown and piece-root grafts. The cro\\Ti-grafts were tied in 

 bundles by themselves and planted by themselves. The roots were first- 

 class and cut to five inches. I gave the crown and piece root grafts the 

 same cultivation and the same general care. When dug at three and 

 four years of age there was no perceptible difference in depth of roots, 

 of crown-grafted trees and piece-root grafted trees, nor in the general 

 growth of the trees, unless it was that the crown-grafts w^ere not quite 

 as smooth, especially at the crown where they were inclined to sprout. 



From this experience I decided that the so-called whole root trees 

 failed to meet the claims made in their favor in point of a deeper root 

 system and extra vigorous growth of trees, and that the claims made 

 against the so-called piece-root trees in point of having only surface roots 

 iind showing less vigor in growth of tree was also untrue. Furthermore, 

 I decided that, as whole-root and piece-root trees were alike in groAvth, 

 there was no good reason for asking more for one than the other. Con- 

 sequently, I put them both at the same price. Judge Wellhouse, the 

 Kansas apple king, gave his experience before the Kansas State Horti- 

 cultural Society, as follows: 



"In 1876 we planted out about 20,000 grafts and some 4,000 to 5,000 

 of whole roots. We had heard a great deal about these whole roots, so 

 we planted about 5,000. We ran a dead furrow and put the lister in and 

 made the furrow just as deep as we could get it, and when we planted 

 the whole root we had to take a spade and dig still further down. We 

 took them up at two years old and planted about 30,000 which were 



