Some Principles of Grafting. 237 



THE TREE AGENT'S GRAFT. 



By L. O. Williams. 



Professor Emerson's letter in a recent issue of the Farmer reminds 

 us that the tree agent is again abroad in the land. 



This particular agent to which he refers with his new form of 

 "graft" reminds me of a style of graft very similar in its purpose that 

 occurred in my boyhood day.s The grafter of my story was a stranger 

 who found his way into town and his efforts to gull the people was 

 worked under the guise of a horticultural grafter. His scheme was a 

 bold one. He would take the common forest trees with which my home 

 town then abounded and by the use of an apple twig and a bottle of a 

 secret "medicine" that his father had "spent a lifetime in discovering," 

 would propose to change the said forest tree into a fruit-bearing tree. 

 His scion and medicine was inserted in the roots of the large trees and 

 the owner of the said tree was to look for apple blossoms the next 

 spring. 



Well, he succeeded in working his "graft" on several of our promi- 

 nent business men. He put in a week or ten days there, boarding mean- 

 while at the best hotel. He didn't ask any pay for his work until his 

 "graft" was ready to fruit. He got away, however, without paying his 

 hotel or livery bill, and left one of his merchant victims with a bill 

 against him for a nice fur overcoat. There were some of our people, 

 however, who had the faith to look up in their walnut trees the next 

 spring for apple blossoms. 



But from that day to this, covering a period of thirty-five years, I 

 have not seen the first forest tree to bear anything but its natural friut. 

 Both the walnut and the hickory, the maple and the willow, have failed 

 to respond to the tree agent's graft. "Neither do men gather grapes off 

 thorns nor figs off thistles." 



SOME PRINCIPLES OF GRAFTING. 



The first thing to be considered by the friut grower or nurseryman 

 who wishes to propagate new stock or change old ones by the grafting 

 process is: Will such and such trees or shrubs unite their wood cells 

 closely and strongly so as to make a new and perfect tree? 



Never to my knowledge have trees or different families been made 

 to unite their woods sufficiently to make a lasting union. Many attempts 



