HOW TO PRODUCE THAT $1,000 PREMIUM APPLE. 471 
also be used as a scion for top-grafting. German writers say that a seedling 
if grafted with itself, that is, the scions cut off and grafted right back on to 
the same tree, will bear earlicr than if left alone. This method I have 
never tried. Dwarf stocks, if properly mulched, would probably prove use- 
ful. Mr. Dartt prefers girdling. This may do for side limbs but not for 
the whole tree. Last year IJ tried girdling at Brookings, having been favor- 
ably impressed with what I saw in Mr. Dartt’s orchards the preceding fall 
(1898). But I find this year that, while girdling certainly has a decided ef- 
fect in causing early bearing, it is too severe a blow at the life of a tree 
in this section. When even Virginia and Whitney crabs fail to stand the 
test of girdling it will be safer to try other methods, or at least to girdle 
only small limbs that can be spared without killing the tree. 
A Plant Breeding Establishment at the Agricultural College and Experiment Station, 
Brookings, S. D. 
Nursery propagation is a necessary test for hardiness. A very large ° 
number of seedlings of the apple, which has been brought to public notice 
in the past generation in the northwest because of the hardiness of the orig- 
inal tree, have quickly dropped out of sight again because the trees failed 
under propagation in the nursery. Our occasional test winters, such a's 
those of 1872-73, 1884-85, and 1898-99, must be taken into account. Some 
trees thrive when young but succumb when they come into bearing. Hence 
the true value of any seedling can only be determined when it has come into 
bearing as a grafted or budded tree and has passed safely through a test win- 
Ret: 
So do not be too enthusiastic over.any new seedling until it has been 
propagated and put into orchard. 
In this work “learn to labor and to wait.” 
