Annual Meeting at St. Joseph. 101 



we confess that we are fallible and liable to err and beg largely for 

 A-our cliarit}' as we hasten on to seek new light. 



I believe that one great cause underlying this question is that 

 in our mad rush and greed to 



MULTIPLY TREES, 



to satisfy the demand for cheaj) nursery trees, we departed from one 

 of the great and grand laws of nature that should never have 

 been violated, wheu in place of making one root for each graft, 

 from each seedling, grafting at the collar, we went to cutting them 

 into small roots, often making from two to five or even a dozen 

 roots from each stock. 



This practice may suit the nurseryman who feels that he must 

 grow cheap trees, so he can comjDcte with others who follow the 

 same practice. The public have no right to complain so long as 

 they are unwilling to pay more than ten or fifteen cents for their 

 trees, but in my opinion such stock will never make the large, 

 healthy, lasting trees that once flourished in our country, and that 

 were started before this pernicious style was introduced. 



That this is one of the chief causes of the short duration of 

 our apple orchards we learn from our own experience and from the 

 fact that it has been almost rfniversally practiced, east and west for 

 nearly fifty years, and that we hear our own lamentations re- 

 echoed by our eastern brethren, victims of the same mistake. 



I believe 



AIsrOTHEE CAUSE 



of the short duration of our orchards to be the forced overgrowth 

 Iseginning with the nui'seryman. 



On his extra rich and nicely prepared soil he is anxious to grow 

 trees as large as possible so they can be sold at two or three years 

 old. Many such trees perish in the hands of the planter during 

 the first few years, from the same reason that highly fed cattle from 

 the stalls fail to thrive and fatten when turned out on the ransre, or 

 into the hands of careless stock feeders. Now I think that in order 

 to have our orchards healthy, we must, as far as may be, go back 

 to first principles, and pay more attention to the laws of nature. 



We must renounce both the forced overgroivth and the starva- 

 tion systems. 



We must start wath seed carefully selected from healthy trees — 

 grow them one year, then graft just above the collar, and grow our 

 nursery trees. 



