FRUIT CULTURE IN ILLINOIS. 



371 



cherry trees in thickets from two to four 

 feet apart, with what success time alone 

 can show. 



Again, sometime since, Professor Adams 

 called my attention to a row of poplar trees, 

 standing on the west side of the public 

 square in this town. These trees were set 

 out as shade trees some six or eight years 

 since ; and at the time, were enclosed for 

 some ten feet above the ground with peeled 

 hickory bark to keep horses from gnawing 

 them. The bark encasement was taken 

 from a tree considerably larger than the 

 poplars at that time ; but the latter have 

 since outgrown this surrounding bark and 

 burst it open. Now on all the parts en- 

 closed and shaded by the hickory case or 

 sheath, these poplars have passed from a 

 smooth to a rough barked tree, while imme- 

 diately above the case they have not burst 

 their corticle, but are still smooth barked 

 poplars. Moreover, their circumference 

 just below the top of the sheath, is actually 

 from four to six inches greater than a few 

 inches above, — causing a bulge in the 

 trunk at that point, as in the case of the 

 peeled cherry trees. Here is then another 

 fact, which should be noted, and from 

 which the inevitable inference is plain : 

 even poplars do not love to be corsetted 

 and scalded in our hot suns ; and nature 

 here always shades the trunk entirely, 

 when allowed to have her own way. 



One fact more, (which must stand as a 

 sample of a multitude of the same class,) 

 and I have done, for this time. A friend 

 of mine on a certain day (spring before 

 last,) went to one nursery and purchased 

 sixty root-grafted apple trees, and then pro- 

 cured one hundred more, grafted on whole 

 seedling roots, from another nursery. The 

 next morning he went to a third nursery 

 and purchased sixty more trees, budded near 

 the ground. All the trees were taken fresh 



from the ground, in perfectly good order, 

 He prepared the same patch of ground, and 

 set them all out promiscuously, according 

 to their kinds of fruit, the next day. They 

 were all treated exactly alike ; and trees 

 of the same kind of fruit from each of the 

 different nurseries were placed in the same 

 rows and marked. Now of the sixty root- 

 grafted trees, only six are alive ; of the 

 sixty budded trees, only some five or six 

 are dead; while of the one hundred, graft- 

 ed on seedling roots, not one has died. 

 Such facts might be cited almost indefi- 

 nitely from the counties around here; and 

 I am credibly informed, that in some parts 

 of Indiana, trees made by root-grafting are 

 dying off by scores, while their older seed- 

 ling orchards stand in the same neighbor- 

 hoods perfectly well. 



But I presume, from the general tone of 

 your correspondents, similar facts are un- 

 known in their vicinities ; and it may seem 

 quite strange to them that they should oc- 

 cur here. But all I can say about it is, 

 they will do so hereabouts, in spite of all 

 theories and all assertions to the contrary. 

 People may talk as they will with us out 

 here ; this is a free country, and the trees 

 will have their own way after all. I know 

 not whether any mere theory which I may 

 have broached is the true theory or not, 

 touching the solution of the above and simi- 

 lar facts. I will not pretend to dispute 

 either for or against any theory with gen- 

 tlemen who have grown grey in the prac- 

 tical service and science of horticulture. I 

 profess to be a mere tyro in the art, though 

 greatly interested in it, and desirous of 

 noting, and, as far as I can, aiding, in the 

 true solution of such facts as come under 

 my notice in the locality where I am 

 placed. And, as you very justly intimated 

 in a former number, no theory, whether 

 false or true, is good for anything further 



