126 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 



fruitgrower as well, but very important to the nurseryman. In the future 

 it will be recognized as very important to the purchaser of trees and 

 plants. 



Prof. Waite: I agree with you all about the importance of this subject, 

 but it seems that it is rather a hard thing to get definite evidence of the 

 matter. I have been trying to get some information for myself, for my 

 own use, and I would like to ask JMr. Kellogg if he has any good specific 

 illustration of the importance of seleecting buds from thrifty, bearing 

 trees. 



Mr. Kellogg: There is one matter that I did not put into this paper, 

 but I intend to bring it out here. Some years ago I bought some Erie 

 blackberry cuttings of Mr. Josselj'n, of New York, a man of reputation, 

 and I received a lot of them, and propagated the plants, relying on his 

 judgment. I had a good deal of correspondence Avith him before about 

 it, and he said he purchased them of the producers that fruited them, and 

 that he knew they were genuine plants beyond all question. He had 

 propagated and fruited them himself, and they were just as fine as could 

 be, and he knew they were not mixed. Xow, I bought these cuttings, and 

 I sold them to my sorrow, for of all the mongrel nuisses I ever saw those 

 cuttings were the worst. There were not only two or three varieties, but 

 two or three hundred of them. Those cuttings had been taken right off 

 of the roots every year without fruiting them, right straight along. I 

 went down to Ohio to see some that I had sold. No nurseryman on earth 

 would have sold such plants if he knew what they were and had a spark 

 of regard for his reputation — never in the world would he have sold such 

 plants. There were all kinds of berries on them, all kinds of things. 

 Those on my own ground started up in the same v,iiy. I saw one patch of 

 500 plants that was so thick with suckers that a cat could hardly crawl 

 through them. What is the object of cultivation, the whole system of cul- 

 tivation? It is to make plants better, to make them bear better crops. 

 It is not and has not been carried on as scientifically, perhaps, as it ought 

 to be; but I am satisfied that there are slight variations. You take a 

 potato, for instance, to furnish a good illustration. You plant a whole 

 large potato and there are only a few buds that will start from it. Some- 

 times you will only get one bud and the others will lie there dormant. 

 You dig down very quietly and take off an eye of that and plant it by 

 itself and it will at once start in. Some of our scientific friends who are 

 with us today may be able to throw a little light on the subject of these 

 variations. It is a new thing. I never heard the subject discussed until 

 recently; but now it has been taken up, and I hope through that to get 

 more definite varieties. Florists have been trying to get something more 

 beautiful, and they become experts. With fruitgrowers as a rule there has 

 been no opportunity to look up this matter, because these slight variations 

 can only be understood by an expert. It is just as it is with a horse — one 

 man can know and see a valuable point in a horse, but I could not detect 

 it. The man Avho is an expert, has made it a study year after year, 

 can get belter results. I understand that around Fredonia, N. Y., they 

 have low land, clay ground, a soil which is not congenial to blackberries, 

 and I am satisfied that that uncongenial soil has produced great varia- 

 tions. They say there are never two blackberries nor two strawberries 

 exactly alike. What Ave are trying to get at is, what shall we do to make 

 plants produce certain ways? You can not do it any more than you can in 



