TOP-WORKING. 169 
bend the limb over and bind it down, That is another method of turning the 
wood buds into blossom buds; it checks the going down of the sap. If it 
does not do something of that kind, it is evident that it is the tendency of 
the tree to go to wood altogether instead of going to fruit. That is the 
tendency of some varieties, especially such as the Malinda; they get to be 
from sixteen to twenty years of age before bearing a good crop of apples; 
it all goes to wood, and the tree does not bear fruit. 
Mr. Dartt: I suppose I ought to answer my friend Philips. We are al- 
ways rather free in critcising each other. Well, he says I don’t know the 
first principles of top-grafting. I say that the gentleman from Wisconsin 
is quite likely to see things that he wants to see and not to see things that he 
does not want to see, and he applied that principle to the grafting on my 
place. He claims he did not see a tree that was grafted right. There were 
a lot of them there that were grafted two years ago, not as large as he inti- 
mated, but say half as large, that are doing admirably well. I sometimes 
graft branches larger than I would otherwise graft, except for the purpose 
of maintaining a uniformity in the top of the tree. If the tree has a tendency 
to grow up high and straight I want to keep it headed so it will spread; then 
I graft the side branches so as to make a uniform top in the tree. The ob- 
ject was to change the Duchess to the form of the Wealthy. I grafted in 
the Wealthy and the Peter, and those varieties are quite congenial to the 
Duchess. In regard to his assertion that trees will not do anything grafted 
on large limbs or a large top, I have positive proof where I grafted trees 
in the forks—grafted some on the Greenwood crab. The trees had grown 
up tall and straight, and I cut off some limbs two inches in diameter and 
grafted them, and those trees are now grown over, and the grafts are doing 
well. I do not think there is a particle of decay there. Now, he says there 
is no reason why a tree is hardier grafted a distance up from the ground. 
You heard the weather man speak in regard to cold. Down close to the 
ground we have the trouble with the snow line. That was made a great 
bugaboo of and was largely treated of in the Iowa society, the snow line 
trouble, and I think it is often quite serious. The snow towards spring 
forms a hard crust and the sun shining on the snow reflects the heat and it 
thaws the tree, extending up above the snow a short distance. I have often 
felt it on my face so it felt warm. Where the degree of heat is increased a 
good deal it is likely to thaw out and injure the trees. I have seen trees 
that six inches above the ground were sound, but above that there was a 
black ring around the tree, and above that it was sound. I have seen ever- 
greens that were four feet high that had a ring killed right around where 
the snow line was, eighteen inches from the ground; below it was all right, 
and the top was all right. So that I know it is more difficult to get things 
to grow a foot from the ground or two feet from the ground than it is 
where they are four or five feet above the surface of the ground. I know 
what I am talking about, because I have observed it through a lifetime. 
Mr. Lyman: There is no question in my mind but what a scion put in 
a hardy stock increases in hardiness by top-grafting, especially on the crab. 
One reason is that the crab ripens so much earlier than the common apple, 
and that has a tendency to ripen the scion earlier. At least that is my 
- Opinion. 
