% 



we, (witli everybody else a few years ago,) esteeming it biglily, wrote so far as we 

 know, one of the earliest articles upon it, descriptive and commendatory, ever published 

 at the East. See Horticulturist, vol. 1, page 280. 



But it is argued that "a tree is a tree" — that root-grafts are, if not the very best, 

 at least "good enough" — that seedlings, as well as grafts, vary in hardihood or pro- 

 ductiveness — and that the hardy or productive ones of either class are equally so, while 

 the opposite, the one as well as the other, will go to the wall. 



Suckers, too, we recollect, were once "just as good as any," and of some plants they 

 still seem to be ; and where from time immemorial they or cuttings have answered all 

 purposes, we would not lightly call them in question. But for all that, discriminating 

 cultivators cannot now be persuaded to trust many kinds of suckers, as they once did. 

 Trees do unquestionably dilFer, on account of diiferent modes of propagation ; thus we 

 have standards and dwarfs, seedlings and suckers, root-grafts and top-grafts, unlike in 

 many and important particulars — not but that they may produce similar fruit, and, 

 under similar and favorable circumstances, be much alike throughout — still there is a 

 plain, practical distinction. So with the difterent parts of a tree, the roots and tops 

 have utterly distinct functions ; a root cannot become a branch, nor a branch a proper 

 root. Thus a seedling varies from a sucker or cutting, especially in its root and collar, 

 and unquestionably throughout. Hence the impropriety of thus confounding them, 

 and of manufacturing entire trees, roots, stem, and branches, out of tops. Nature will 

 doubtless do the best that can be done with them ; but how can they make as natural 

 trees as seedlings ? The proper place to use tops is to make tops again — at least with 

 the nobler fruits, so liable as they have become to untoward influences. Where so 

 much is at stake, 



Let foolish art and busy man withdraw 

 While Xiiturs plants the corner stone, 



Nor can the foundation be too ruo^ffed and enduring. 



Trees difier in being of different varieties as well as classes. It is said there are 

 sections where nearly all varieties are root-grafted, and with perfect success. In other 

 sections, too, throughout the North and West, some varieties are generally recognized 

 as too tender for root-grafting, and, in extreme cases, for any situation. For one, I do 

 not know where these tender varieties do succeed so perfectly. In the very best apple 

 districts in Western New York, we have seen (rarely, we admit, for we have never 

 investigated particularly on this point, but we have seen) the same effects from root- 

 grafting that are complained of elsewhere — in the nursery bursting, and in the orchard 

 dying out at the collar, — while seedlings flourish almost everywhere; and every 

 improved variety, without exception, in our experience, is rendered hardier and, if any 

 thing more, productive, when worked standard high on hardy, productive seedlings. 

 Is it not then the obvious dictate of sound policy to adhere inflexibly to the very best 

 mode of propagation? Are we wise to take up with anything short ? To strengthen 

 a feeble grower, or renew stunted varieties, we have ever been wont to work them on 

 the best seedling stocks ; thus, by common consent, from time immemorial, acknowl- 

 edging that with respect to vigor and hardihood the bottoms govern. Bottoms change 



m^^' 



