SECRETARY'S PORTFOLIO. 301 



I write ill tho hope that the science and persevcrence that have quintupled 

 the productiveness of the strawberry and the size of its fruit, tripled the quan- 

 tity of corn per acre, given us luscious fruits, instead of the crabbed, acrid 

 ones which nature once provided, may, by the application of profound study, 

 experiment, and persevering industry, yet produce fruit trees that the orchard- 

 ist, by giving them judicious care, can rely upon for productiveness and the 

 possession of tliat peculiar flavor and aroma which belonged originally to the 

 variety. That such trees cannot be raised for the paltry prices now obtained, 

 I am well aware ; and thatpurcliasers and fruit-growers must be more liberal in 

 the prices they will pay, is also certain, if tliey would have evidence of greater 

 perfection in the trees purchased. 



The advantage of the selection of perfect seed from which to breed, is 

 becoming every year more apparent. We have examples of it in the two farm 

 products, corn and potatoes. Every good farmer selects for the former his 

 best ears, and to this cause 1 impute the great increase in ])roduct, while it is 

 quite common to plant of the latter what has been discarded for the table, 

 and instead of 200 to 400 bushels of sixty years ago, we now average less 

 than 100. 



ANOTHER UPOX TPIE SAME. 



Dr. T. II. Hoskins of Vermont, upon the same subject, gives several exam- 

 ples of the influence of stock on the graft, and concludes as follows concerning 

 the propagation of nursery trees : 



Experience has slowly led me to the belief that the less of the stock there is 

 to a grafted tree, the better. Consequently I would always practice root- 

 grafting, and set the grafts deep enough to encourage the development of roots 

 from the cion. Not all kinds will strike root freely under such circumstances, 

 but those which do, make the best trees and bear fruit truest to their original. 

 Examination has shown me, in many instances, that when two-inch roots are 

 used, with six or seven-inch cions, set so that only one or two buds are above 

 ground, the ''nurse-root" hardly, survives the first season; or, if it does, it 

 furnishes but a very small fraction of the root-system of the tree. I was very 

 much prejudiced against this method of propagation, and have in fact 

 denounced it savagely in years past, but I must now confess that trees grown 

 in tliat way, to prove its badness, are among the best in my orcliard. 



BARK BURSTING OF NURSERY TREES. 



Prof. Budd, of the Iowa As^ricultural Collefre, has this to sav in relation to 

 the very common trouble of bark bursting near the crown of nursery trees : 



This bark bursting of young trees, with a large proportion of newly formed 

 cell structure in their trunks, may occur at any time from the middle of Sep- 

 tember to the middle of March, when the conditions are jiresent as to sudden 

 accession of moisture after a season of deprivation of water by drought, or 

 severe freezing. In this special case, the severe drought of August and first 

 half of September was followed by sudden flooding of the tissues with water 

 during the copious rains in that section the last of September. 



We have long believed that sudden supply of water, after a period of unusual 

 deprivation, had something to do with the rupture of nursery trees and also 



