THE PLUM ORCHARD IN JULY AND AUGUST. 249 



Mr. Cook : I have never grafted any pure Japanese except 

 this spring. I don't know what we can do to prevent them out- 

 growing it ; I cannot give any plan. 



Mr. Prosser : Well, if you put it down on the root? 



Mr. Elliot : You will have the same difficulty. 



Mr. Prosser: Will not your stock overbalance that difficulty? 



Mr. Cook : If it was a short root graft it would be all right. 

 They would throw roots out of the scion on short piece roots, and 

 I believe that would work all right. 



Mr. Elliot : Would the tree be hardy on those short grafts ? 



Mr. Cook: I think not. 



Mr. Moore : I have tried grafting on our native roots, and it 

 was a perfect failure. 



Mr. Kellogg: I have a Burbank that bore heavily this year 

 which is grafted on the De Soto. The blossoms were forty to the 

 foot by actual count. They matured nicely with very little rot, but 

 I expect it to be dead next spring. I want it to die a happy death. 

 I saved scions, and I want to do it again. The Burbank is not hardy 

 on its own roots, and I do not think we can save it top-grafted. 



Mr. W. J. Moyle (Wis.) : This question of pruning is one of 

 great importance. Mr. Cook suggests we go through our plum 

 trees with an axe and prune out the trees ; that is better than thin- 

 ning out the fruit. I would like to ask whether he has observed any 

 damage resulting from going in with an axe and cutting out 

 branches ? 



Mr. Cook : I consider it a damage to the tree to have it grow 

 so high that when the plums fall on the ground they will crack. 

 I cut those long branches, sometimes they are eight to ten feet long, 

 I cut them off within a foot of the tree, and usually they throw out 

 new shoots, sometimes they grow five or six feet in a single season, 

 and you practically have a new tree. You keep that up for three 

 or four years, and at the end of that time you have a new tree. It 

 may do harm to some extent, but I think it does more good than 

 harm. 



Mr. Moyle : Will it be all right to cut them off any time during 

 the summer? 



Mr. Cook : I think so ; it is hardy enough so it will stand it at 

 any time in the summer. If a farmer has, maybe, a hundred bushels 

 to market he has no time to gather his fruit, and if he cut ofif these 

 limbs the size of the rest of the fruit will increase. You are pruning 

 your trees and thinning the fruit — killing two birds with one stone. 



Mr. Moyle : In regard to grafting the Jap on native roots, 

 some twelve' or fifteen years ago Prof. Goff grafted on a whole- 

 root graft, and when our trees got to bearing size they broke ofit". 



Mr. Elliot : Don't you think it would be better to begin thin- 

 ning earlier in the season than July or August? After the fruit 

 has fairly set, I do not know whether it would not be injurious, 

 and I think it would be more beneficial to begin it in June. 



Mr. Cook : Perhaps it would. I can say this about thinning 

 plums : I have gone through the orchard when they were just 

 getting ripe and picked ofif the finest plums on the trees, and what 

 were left grew to be larger than those I picked first. I think thin- 

 ning is a good thing at any time, but the earlier the better. 



