THE MONTHLY BULLETIN. 431 



that lias been in progress long enough to permit definite conclusions 

 is that of the Southern Oregon Experiment Station, where Professor 

 Reimer has been working for some years with many species of pears 

 in an endeavor to find a stock that would be free from the disadvantages 

 of the French seedling. 



As is well known to most orchardists, the French root is subject to 

 great injury from attacks of the pear-root aphis and is particularly 

 susceptible to pear blight. As it suckers readily and these suckers 

 often carry blight to the underground parts of the tree, the use of the 

 French root not only adds to any system of blight control the heavy 

 expense of eradicating blight from the root, but it at the same time 

 constitutes an added and needless menace to the life of the tree, 



Reimer 's work has been most systematic and has demonstrated that 

 great improvement in nursery stock will result from discarding the 

 French seedling and substituting the Japanese or Chinese seedling, 

 sometimes called the sand pear. For years this was known to botanists 

 as "Pyrus sinensis," but Rehder, of the Arnold Arboretum, has 

 recently determined that "Pyrus serotina" is the correct name of the 

 species generally used by nurserymen under the names "Japan seed- 

 ling" or "Chinese seedling." This species is quite resistant to attacks 

 of the woolly aphis of the pear and remarkably resistant to blight. 

 Reimer repeatedly inoculated the roots of this species with blight 

 without producing a single case of the disease. At the same time he 

 made similar inoculations with the same culture in the roots of French 

 seedlings in adjoining rows, killing 100 per cent with blight. 



This species produces a tree of great vigor when used as a stock 

 for our commercial varieties and makes a perfect union. Although 

 in satisfactory use in the eastern and southern states for over fifty 

 years its use on the Pacific Coast dates back less than ten, but its 

 desirable qualities are now so generally recognized here that it appears 

 destined to supplant the French root within a short time. Harry 

 Nicholson, a Tennessee nurseryman, is now using the Japan root in 

 an experiinental way as a stock for apples, to obtain a root that will 

 not be injured by the woolly apple aphis — a pest that makes apple 

 growing impractical in some nurseries. 



Nurserymen will welcome the discovery of a stock for apples that 

 is aphis-proof and which will avoid the cumbersome method, now 

 practiced to a slight degree, of double-working on Northern Spy, a 

 variety somewhat resistant to aphis. 



Plum growers realize that there is much room for improvement in 

 the stocks now in use for this fruit. Myrobalan, the stock usually used 

 for moist soils, is very susceptible to crown gall. The same is true of 

 the peach root, which is generally used in dry soils. Peach root has 

 the further disadvantage of making a most unsatisfactory union with 

 many plums, among them being Diamond, Grand Duke, Yellow Egg, 

 Robe de Sargent, and Sugar. A stock for plums that will give as 

 good results on dry soils as the peach, that will make as good a union 

 with all varieties as Myrobalan, and that will be as free from crown 

 gall as the Damson, without its tendency to sucker, would be of greatest 

 advantage to plum growers. Leonard Coates has been experimenting 

 with several new plum stocks, and as he is already responsible for the 

 introduction of a number of valuable varieties of different fruits, and 



