Winter Meeting. 127 



charge. Prof. Waugh from Manhattan, now dean of tliis eastern station. 

 With characteristic Western energy, he pointed out the experiments under 

 way there, and one of the most interesting was that of the Cordon apple 

 trees, dwarf stock planted i8 inches apart in a row and bent or grafted 

 at right angles, 8 inches from the ground, all in the same direction. 

 When the one behind reaches its neighbor in front the end is grafted in 

 and soon all are grown together as a rope or, in French, a Cordon. The 

 end is kept for growth and feeding the tree. Back of this to the bend 

 are the fruit spurs. The foreigners using this Cordon method put in 

 other buds for more fruit. There are 150 students at the Amherst College 

 and Prof. Waugh has 100 in his lectures on horticulture. They grow 

 flowers, plants, fruits and vegetables for sale. Last spring over 2 cars 

 of nursery stock were sold and from 2 to 4 tons of grapes at 8 to 12 

 cents per pound, besides the waste and trimmings to farmers and neigh- 

 bors for jelly, canning, etc., at 5 cents per lb. 



At Florence, Italy, also, we saw the School of Horticulture and the 

 experiment grounds. Here American peaches were planted 9 by 12 

 feet apart — too close as the gardener agreed. The peaches on the field 

 trees were killed by a late frost, but on those trained against the walls 

 were many peaches and the Amsden were already pink. The pyramidal 

 forms bear fruit best, but they take so much longer to come to bearing; 

 so all manner of other forms are used, like lattice work some, a seven 

 branched candlestick ; like U and double or triple U. In the hot houses 

 grapes were growing large as plums, and Japanese persimmons were 

 large as our tomatoes, and tomato plants in pots were ripening the second 

 crop. The Italian soldiers are taught at this school. Since the country 

 people cannot read, printed bulletins are not issued much but institutes 

 are held for them at many places. 



Another school is at Geisenheim, a tiny town near Bingen on the 

 Rhine, and is, as Prof. Whitten said, the finest technical school of horti- 

 culture in Europe, and I gave my hearty congratulations to the one 

 American student so fortunate in being there. 



Every now and then, commenting on dififerent varieties, the Pro- 

 fessor of the school said of one and another, "It is 'dankbar,' " wliich is 

 translated "thankful," and, as it proved, means that the tree gratefully 

 responds to care and cultivation. There is a pleasant sound in that little 

 word "dankbar," and our crops would be better if more of cur trees 

 had a chance to be "thankful." Even the little Cordons responded gen- 

 erously to the attention given thern ; and every tree and plant, every foot 

 of ground, gave evidence of the care taken with every detail of work. 



On a rainy day in August at Geisenheim, you may find the students 



