TOP-WORKrNG THE MINNESOTA ORCHARD. . 105 



TOP-WORKING THE MINNESOTA ORCHARD. 



D. F. AKIN, FARMINGTON. 



This subject must include in its scope the various different ways 

 of grafting, budding, pruning and thinning. Some one asks, what is 

 the grafting done for, and the answer is, to get better fruit than 

 the tree now gives, .to increase a good variety or to get fruit 

 sooner. This proves that no tree that bears good fruit should 

 be grafted — " the tree that doth not bear good fruit shall be 

 cut down." Nor should any seedling be used as a stock for 

 grafting till it shows what kind of fruit it will produce. In doing 

 this Minnesota has, no doubt, lost more varieties of splendid seed- 

 ling apples than are shown at this meeting. From the above we 

 conclude that no orchard which bears good fruit should be top- 

 worked. 



Another reason for not top-working the orchard is that cutting ofif 

 the limbs at the time when it is believed grafting, to be a success* 

 must be done, causes the tree to blight. As a proof of this, I set 

 out a row of one hundred native crab seedlings; when they were 

 four or five years old, I began at the south end of the row and 

 grafted four or five trees each year. Within three years after they 

 were grafted they blighted dead, till half the row which had been 

 grafted was dead, while the other half that had not been grafted 

 was as fresh as daisies. Then I grafted at the other end of the row 

 and here and there a tree; they soon took the cue from the other 

 grafted trees, and every one blighted. There are but few varieties 

 of the apple tree that will live when trimmed in the early spring, 

 when most horticulturists think grafting should be done. 



I have one variety (called Hebron) and some seedlings that have 

 lived and appear to thrive just as well with grafting as without. In 

 one of these trees I have six varieties bearing, viz: Blushed Calville 

 Seedling No. 1, Powers' Sweet, Okabena, Virginia and Wealthy. I 

 also have bearing in a wild crab four varieties, viz: Whitney, Peer- 

 less, Virginia and Seedling No. 1. This tree stands near the public 

 highway and attracts much attention and many expressions of 

 wonder and amusement, that a tree can bear so many different 

 kinds of apples. Allow me right here to express my wonder that 

 such a miracle can be wrought by so small a piece of a tree as a 

 graft — how it can produce an apple like the tree it was cut from and 

 use the same life fluitl that makes the unpalatable crab and not 

 have one characteristic of the stock. 



I have a number of trees grafted with several varieties each, 

 which is quite an improvement, as these trees give fruit each year 

 instead of every odd year. 



My rule has always been to not graft or bud any tree that gives 

 good fruit, and never graft a seedling until it shows what kind of 

 fruit it will produce. As soon as a tree shows poor or undesirable 

 fruit, I graft it with the best variety I have. In this way I have some 

 seedling trees that are perfectly hardy, but gave small, undesirable 

 fruit, filled almost every limb with desirable, salable fruit, which 

 are larger and nicer than on the stock I bought. Some of these 

 grafts bear so profusely that they have to be propped up to keep 



