PROCEEDINGS OF THE ANNUAL MEETING 95 



Mr, Haling: A pear tree is what I have in mind. 



-Mr. .Morrill: Well, that is (jiiite anotlicr thing. If an apple tree has 

 ceased to bear good fruit and is comparatively going into decay, if you 

 turn in and graft it you nuiy reap tliree or four or five crops of nice fruity 

 but the j)rocess of decay is going right on and you are simply taking ad- 

 vantage of what little life is left. That is possible. 



Mv. Slay ton: Your new top will look vigorous and well and may pro- 

 duce some fruit, but the tree decays right on. 



Mr. Morrill : Now, a i)each orchard that has ceased to produce good fruit 

 and is com{)aratively going into decay, can be cut back three or four years 

 and a new head put upon it, and apparently the vigor renewed for a short 

 period, and produce the finest kind of fruit; but it simply squeezes the last 

 bit of life out of it. The decaying goes right on, but it is often good 

 practice. 



Mr. Haring: I believe my experience might be of some value to you. It 

 was })robably twelve 3'ears ago that I had some grafting done on the farm, 

 nuiinly in the pear orchard, and I had a pear tree of the Sheldon variety. 

 It did not bear very well and I concluded that I would change the fruit and 

 graft a Flemish Beauty scion upon it. I did so. The next year, I noticed 

 that the bark on the southwest side of the tree slutted off, and that the 

 wood underneath that bark was wonderfully decayed. I said to myself, 

 I never will have any profit from that graft or from the tree itself. I 

 did not suppose I would. The tree at that time, I think, was about the 

 thickness of a stove-pipe or nearly so. and today the heart is mostly gone, 

 and I believe that the shell of the tree at the very thickest point is not to 

 exceed three inches and a half or four inches thick, but it seems to be 

 growing together again, leaving a hollow in the center of the tree where the 

 heart formerly was or seemed to be, and the graft is a very vigorous one. 

 We have harvested from three to four bushels of nice Flemish Beautv 

 pears from that one graft. 



Mr. Stone: How old was the tree when you made the graft? 



]\Ir. Haring: I could not say. for it was set before I owned the farm. 

 I have had the farm now for nearly twenty years, and it is a profitable tree 

 today. 



^Ir. Kellogg; Is it not decayed where the graft is? 



Mv. Haring: Yes, below the graft. 



Mr. Morrill: That is a ])eculiar condition. It was winter-killing from 

 the sap starting and freezing. There is no question about that. The tree 

 itself was suffering from an injui'y rather than what we ordinarily would 

 term decay, and this decay has resulted through the injury; there was a 

 starting of the sap in the winter previous to that, and freezing, which had 

 caused the decay, and so far as that section went it injured the tree. It 

 decayed, but there was a portion of your tree that was not injured at all^ 

 perhaps. 



Mr. Haring: O certainly, I should think probably two thirds. 



Mr. Morrill: The tree was not going into decline, but it had met an 

 injury. 



Mr. Haring: I have always been inclined to believe if I had not grafted 

 that tree it would have been dead long ago. 



Mr. Kellogg: The graft had nothing to do with it. 



Mr. Kellogg: Let me exnlain that graft. Take a scion and set it into a 

 new tree; it is a pai'asite, just simply a parasite there. Now, this Individ- 



