HARDY APPLK TREES, 227 



THE PRODUCTION OF HARDY APPLE TREES. 



In Minnesota, the Dakotas and all of Nebraska, except the southeast- 

 ern portion, where the winters 'are as a rule extremely severe and trying, 

 the nurserymen have always been confronted with tlie problem of pro- 

 ducing hardy apple trees. We are all aware of the fact that in the area 

 named a large percentage of. apple trees winterkill during the first severe 

 winter which the young orchard encounters. This is a very discouraging 

 experience to the farmer and orchardist and at the same time gives a 

 bad reputation to the nurseryman who sold the trees. 



Winter-killing always belongs to either one of two classes. To the 

 first belong those cases where the variety is not absolutely hardy and the 

 tree either kills back in the branches or the entire tree may die. The 

 question is entirely one of variety. For this class of tenderness there is no 

 preventive except not to plant these kinds that are not hardy. In some 

 rare cases the trees may be wrapped or laid down over winter like rasp- 

 berry bushes but this is not practical. 



The second class of winter-killing is the more common and has nothing 

 to do with the variety. The cause for such winter-killing lies in the fact 

 that the tree has been budded or grafted onto a tender stock or root. The 

 variety may be hardy but if the root upon which it has been worked is 

 tender, the tree will be weakened and winter killed. 



Such roots may stand the winters' for several years abd often such 

 trees attain a good old age, but most .young trees when they do not yet 

 possess enough roots of their own (that is roots emitted from the scion) 

 will succumb during the first test winter. We call that a test winter when 

 there is a very little or no snow on the ground for a long time and the 

 thermometer goes down to 20 or 30 degrees below zero for a few weeks, 

 then it will suddenly become warm again and then another cold spell. 

 Often late in the winter there is a warm spell and this is followed by a 

 sudden cold snap. Such winters will kill any apple trees that are not ab- 

 solutely hardy in the nursery as well as in the orchard. 



Whether or not an apple tree of a hardy variety will stand these 

 severe winters all depends upon the method by which the tree was pro- 

 duced and the hardiness of the root upon which it has been worked. In 

 general there are four methods used in producing apple trees in Nebraska 

 and the other Northwestern states. I shall briefly describe these four 

 methods with a short discussion on each method and its relation to the 

 hardiness of the tree. 



BUDDED TREES. 



By budded trees we mean those which are produced by budding the 

 desired variety onto a seedling stock. The seedling stocks are either 

 grown or bought. If they are bought we are not certain of their origin nor 

 will we know how hardy they will be. On the other hand, if we grow 

 our own seedlings from seeds that have been taken from such hardy 

 apples as Duchess, Patten's Greening, Hibernal and Virginia Crab and 

 others of absolute hardiness then we know that they will be hardy and re- 



