THE CRAB ROOT AS A STOCK FOR THE MINNESOTA ORCHARD. 297 



THE CRAB ROOT AS A STOCK FOR THE MINNESOTA 



ORCHARD. 



J. FLAGSTAD^ SACRED HEART. 



The nurserymen present will agree with me that the subject is 

 of too large a magnitude to be discussed successfully in the time 

 allotted for this paper, nor is it possible to enter into the details 

 of my experience along this line. 



In the discussion of this subject I think a good many members 

 of this society will admit that this is a problem of vast importance to 

 the horticulturists of Minnesota, a problem that has to be solved 

 before we can make INIinnesota one of the many successful apple 

 producing states. 



I have been invited to write a paper on this subject, and although 

 I am what they call a crank I will admit that there are certain things 

 which would be of disadvantage to us nursery people if we 

 should carry out the plan to use hardy crab roots for stock purposes 

 on a very large scale, owing to the limited quantity of seed available. 

 We know that in either case one of the parties will lose ; if the 

 nurserymen uses hardy crab roots for propagation then they ought 

 to get a bigger price for their trees on account of the increased 

 cost of production ; on the other hand the customer loses by getting 

 trees grafted on inferior roots, even if he could get the trees for a 

 little less than those grafted on a hardy crab stock. 



Is the agitation for a hardy root stock really as important as we 

 consider it to be? In my experience I have found that a large 

 number of the apple trees in our state have been grafted on stock 

 that was unable to withstand test winters such as those of 1884, 

 1898 and 1899. I have also found that after trees had been bearing 

 fruit a few years and after they would have been supposed to have 

 set roots of their own — those trees (in this case Wealthy) in the 

 spring would be as dead as a doornail. 



You are all^ no doubt, more or less acquainted with the talk that 

 was current here some thirty years ago about the uselessness of 

 attempting to raise eatable apples in this state, even for private use 

 only, to say nothing of raising fruit for commercial purposes. In 

 my locality people sincerely believed that the cause of a tree's 

 death was to be sought in the soil, that the quality and make-up of 

 our soil was such that when the roots came to a certain depth they 

 would inevitably die — no one thought of looking for the failure in 

 the tenderness of the roots themselves. But being like the stubborn 

 mule in this respect, I kept on bucking and buying trees, being un- 



