202 THE MONTHLY BULLETIN. 



from the best we have in each frail and endeavor to combine them; 

 the 'scientific investigators of our experiment stations must enter the 

 practically neglected field of rootstock investigation and determine, not 

 only the affinity between slick and eion, bu1 the root that is best 

 adapted to certain soil conditions and best adapted to resist insect 

 pests and plant diseases; while the nurseryman, profiting by all that 

 these have done, must get out of the rut of blind and thoughtless fol- 

 lowing of old horticultural trails that have naught but antiquity to 

 recommend them, and he must fully understand the great responsi- 

 bility resting upon him as counsellor and guide to many orchardists. 

 He should never forget the cruel disappointment to someone that must 

 inevitably follow either his carelessness or his dishonesty if he should 

 allow stock to leave his hands other than that which his customer 

 desires. He must place his business on a higher plane than that of 

 mere buying and selling and must feel that it is his mission to be an 

 agent in helping Nature add to the welfare of mankind. 



With this fourfold force in intelligent cooperation the improvement 

 of nursery stock will lie greater than we can at this time imagine, and 

 its effect upon horticultural development will be so far-reaching that 

 we can not even attempt to estimate the results. 



IMPROVEMENT OF NURSERY STOCK. 



Discussion by Leonard Coates, Owner Leonard Coates Nursery, Morgan Hill. Cal. 



I want, first, to thank Mr. Wisker for the paper he has presented and 

 I feel personally reassured when such men as he are taking a prominent 

 part in the fruit industry of California. I used to deplore the fact 

 that while we had many hundreds, if not thousands of alert fruit 

 growers in California we had comparatively few horticulturists. Most 

 of them seemed to have passed away twenty-five or more years ago. 

 It may not be so and it is not so literally, but they have kept unfortu- 

 nately in the background. Mr. Wisker. who is recognized as an 

 educator in this line, has talked to you on one of the chief fundamental 

 facts in horticulture and of the higher aims of the nurseryman's pro- 

 fession. It is his life's work. He devotes his whole study and time to 

 these matters. The fruit grower is too busy, and his mind is too much 

 occupied with the growing and marketing of his fruit, to give attention 

 to these little details, which, as your chairman has said, are of such 

 vital importance. They are vital for many reasons, first, because they 

 begin with the very mot of the tree, and, second, because the bud which 

 is inserted in the rootstock produces the fruit which you will eventually 

 pick. 



Some reference was made to plum stocks. I am experimenting with 

 some of these and they might, in some eases with some varieties of fruit, 

 be an improvement on the myrobalan stock. You all know the main 

 reason, doubtless, why the myrobalan stock was used so extensively and 

 has become such a favorite stock in California, at, least in the heavy 

 lands. The main reason it became popular a great many years ago was 

 because it was not apt to sucker. We used to grow in the earlier days, 

 thirty or fortj years ago, several varieties of domestic seedlings on which 



