166 MINNF.SOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Mr. Barnes (Wisconsin): I would like to answer Mr. Hartwell'a 

 question, and though we are not in a convention of nurserymen we 

 may be able to throw some lig-ht on this subject. The trying- season 

 of four years ago killed some 80,000 trees for me, and in digging 

 them up, I found some of those trees were in fair condition, and 

 invariably those trees had commenced to grow roots from the cions. 

 I plant cions five or six inches long, I plant them deep, and I grow 

 roots from almost every single cion in the nursery. I am not adver- 

 tising my success, but brother Philips can tell you all about it. I 

 want no other practice or system on my place. I believe it is the 

 successful way to grow nursery trees. 



Mr. Phillips: In regard to what Mr. Barnes says: I looked at his 

 trees, and I asked him to bring a bunch of those trees to this meet- 

 ing. He has nice soil to grow trees in, and he had a half dozen or 

 more in a bunch with the finest roots I ever saw. I think the point 

 is right here — and there are no people in the world that thresh over 

 old straw like horticulturists. Mr. Smith got up here in this build- 

 ing and said he had traveled all over this state and Wisconsin, and 

 the best trees he knew of in either state were trees where a long cion 

 was used on roots one and one-half inches long. We are a little 

 cranky about the Virginia crab. Somebody said I had discarded 

 it; that is not so. 1 know of twenty-five Virginia crabs where the 

 roots that are supporting the tree are all above the original root 

 The original cion is supporting the tree today. 



Mr. C. L. Smith : About the Virginia crab: I had a few root-grafts 

 that were overlooked on the place, and I took them up and set them 

 out in the spring on a dry ridge. I had so'ne trees on their own 

 roots, and every one of those seedlings froze out dead the first 

 winter. The Virginia crab roots readily from cuttings, and they 

 were all on their own roots, and those Virginias were all alive- 

 There were a few Duchess, a few Wealthy, a few Transparent and 

 some Whitney that came through, but most of them did not make 

 roots enough from the cuttings to get through. The Whitney did- 

 and the Siberian will do it. I know from experience that the short 

 root and long cion of hardy varieties will not root-kill during our 

 dry winters, and I am satisfied that more of our trees die from root- 

 killing than from any other one cause. 



Mr. Hartwel] : I will state another point this same man told me. 

 It was his impression that a tree that had crab blood in it would 

 fruit more easily than any other. 



Mr. Dartt: In regard to killing out of trees, lean relate some- 

 thing of my own sad experience. A good many years ago I had 800 

 fine Wealthy trees; they had just come into bearing, and some trees 

 had produced a bushel of fruit. It was just before the hard winter 

 of 1884-5, and nearly every one of those trees went down to the 

 ground from the effects of that winter. I thought I did not want a 

 tree that would kill down, and I went to work and grubbed out most 

 of them and replaced with Duchess. A few of them were left and 

 sprouted from the root, and those trees soon commenced bearing 

 and have borne ever since, and I am satisfied that I lost more than 

 $2,000 by grubbing out those old Wealthy stumps. The same rule 



