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Japanese vs. French Pear Stocks for the South. 



Twenty Bartlett pear trees were planted in February, 1896, 

 on poor, gravelly soil. All were from the same nursery and 

 have received the same treatment. Ten of the trees were 

 on Japanese seedling roots, and ten on the usual French seed- 

 lings. From the first the trees on Japanese roots have been 

 the most vigorous, and now they average fully twice the size 

 of those on French roots. 



The Stringfellow Method of Short Root Pruning. 



The method of pruning away practically all the roots of a 

 young tree before planting it, leaving only short stubs half 

 an inch long or less, seems to be finding an increasing num- 

 ber of advocates. This new method runs so exactly counter 

 to the established practice and teaching of generations of 

 orchardists and nurserymen that conservative people find it 

 diflQcult to believe the favorable reports of it that they see in 

 print. Hiving been taught all our lives the necessity for 

 keeping the root system of the young tree as nearly intact as ' 

 possible when moving it from the nursery to the orchard, it 

 gives one a shock to be told that it would be better to cut it 

 away entirely. Tne advocates of this system claim that with 

 trees so treated the new roots, springing direct from the crown 

 and from the short stubs, assume a more natural position and 

 strike down more deeply into the soil than when trees are 

 planted in the usual way; and that consequently the tree is 

 more vigorous and longer lived. Second, they point to the 

 undoubted fact that the new plan is much the cheaper. 

 Less care would be required in digging the trees in the nur- 

 sery; a good share of the top and roots could be cut away 



