260 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



in the room, and I would just as soon go into that business and furnish 

 you with some good fruit — just as soon go into it as not. What do you 

 suppose, if I had gotten my commission, would I care whether you called 

 me a scamp or not? But you need not lay all of the blame on the agents. 

 An agent comes along and offers me some fruit. He can supply me with 

 anything I need. Now, some of you have found a great deal of fault be- 

 cause your fruits don't ripen. If I buy a Salway peach, I buy it because 

 I want a late peach. 



Mr. Watkins: I don't wish you to think that I called this matter up 

 believing that Mr. Greening or the Greening Nursery company ever put 

 out a peach tree that they did not believe to be genuine, because it costs 

 just as much to put out an inferior quality of peach as a good one; but 

 there has been a serious wrong committed to the planters of fruit, and 

 in their behalf I know of no better way to stir this thing up. I have the 

 utmost confidence in Mr. Greening, and believe he is worthy of your trade, 

 but there was a gross wrong committed, and I was asked, if I had an 

 opportunity, to look it up and see how these things occur. The planters 

 want to know. We know that it costs as much to grow an inferior peach 

 as a good one, but where and how does this error come in, and how will 

 the planter find protection ? 



Mr. Woodward: I want to ask Mr. Willard a question. A friend of 

 mine who had set a thousand trees, for yellow peaches, about five hun- 

 dred of which bore this year, all white peaches, asked me what to do with 

 them. The first thought was to pull them out, but after a while I said I 

 would saw them off and let them sprout, and in the fall bud them, three to 

 every stem; let the buds grow one year, and then thin them. I will ask 

 Mr. Willard what kind of trees they will make. 



Mr. Willard: They will bring peaches two years sooner than if re-set, 

 but I think tbe man that sold the trees ought to be called upon to make 

 them good ; not only to supply the trees, but to pay something. 



.Mr. Woodward : I have taken trees of my own, after they had stood 

 two or three years, and sawed off the top and worked into the wood. It 

 is as easy to bud a peach as to cut your finger. 



Mr. Greening : We are more likely to make mistakes on peach trees than 

 any other kind, from the fact that we can not tell the different kinds apart 

 if they become mixed, except seedlings; and we can tell a Smock, some- 

 times, from a seedling, but the second or third year we can tell them apart. 

 Other trees we can tell at a glance, but not peach trees. With them we 

 are left entirely in the dark; that is the reason there are so many more 

 mixtures, and sometimes serious ones, in peach trees than other kinds of 

 fruits. We can easily detect a seedling when it stands in the nursery 

 rows, but when two or three varieties of peach become mixed, we can not 

 tell them apart. We can recognize them in bearing condition or in the 

 nursery. They grow upright, have thin limbs, the leaf is somewhat dif- 

 ferent, but there are some varieties that have identically the same leaf, 

 and it is very hard to tell them apart. 



Mr. Morrill : I don't like to leave this topic without mentioning some- 

 thing that has not been touched upon. I think all this has shown the ne- 

 cessity of close relations between nurserymen and planters. There has 

 been something said in favor of the agent. The agent may be all right 

 or all wrong; he is a man; he may mean well and he may mean ill. Yoo 



