ROOT KILLING OF APPLE TREES. 463 



established in nursery being the accepted method. Grafting at the 

 collar in spring is used where the bud has failed. These two 

 methods are the only ones that give the strong, straight-stemmed 

 trees demanded by their trade. The apple trees noted by the 

 writer in 1894 in visiting many nurseries and schools of horticulture 

 in a four months' trip through England, Germany, Denmark, 

 Sweden, Russia, Austria, Belgium and France were all propagated 

 in this manner, except those in northern Russia, and impressed me 

 with their smooth, healthy and vigorous growth. A two-year bud- 

 ded tree averaged fully as large as a three year old piece-root 

 grafted tree in our western nurseries, and were superior in smooth- 

 ness of stem and freedom from an undue number of pruning scars. 



Indeed, our American nurserymen in the eastern states have long 

 practiced the budding of apple trees, the same as in European 

 nurseries, as they find it gives a larger percentage of salable trees. 

 Western apple seedling growers meet this eastern demand for seed- 

 lings with branched roots by sorting these out (called "budders" in 

 nursery parlance). These "one year No. 1 seedlings, 3-16 inch and 

 up at the collar," with branched roots, are worth as much wholesale 

 as those with long, straight unbranched roots, of the same caliber 

 at the collar, which are used for piece-root grafting. In European 

 nurseries the branched roots are obtained either by crowding the 

 seedlings in seed bed the first year and transplanting with trimmed 

 roots the second year, or more commonly by transplanting the 

 seedling the first year when quite small. The latter method is 

 called "pikiren" by German growers, and is practiced extensively in 

 French and German nurseries. This transplanting (and not pinch- 

 ing) breaks up the tap root and causes it to branch. 



The budded trees of eastern nurseries have failed in the north- 

 west because of the seedling root being too near the surface. North- 

 western nurserymen have found piece-root grafts far better, because 

 by using a long scion and short root the tender seedling is brought 

 several inches deeper below the surface, and the scion has an oppor- 

 tunity to form its own roots. "Whole-root grafted trees" are ex- 

 posed to the same danger as budded trees, the tender seedling being 

 brought too near the surface. If made with as long a scion as the 

 piece-root grafted trees, the seedling root has the same chance of 

 protection by the earth covering, and the scion roots have the same 

 opportunity to form roots. But this is not usually done, as it 

 would make the root-graft too long for convenient planting in the 

 nursery. But last winter's experience at Brookings demonstrates 

 that the scion roots of hardy varieties of the cultivated apple are 

 tender as well as the seedling roots, so that hardier stocks are neces- 

 sary on the northern borders of orcharding in the prairie North- 

 west. 



The latest reference on the subject we find as this bulletin goes to 

 press. Geo. J. Kellogg of Janesville, Wis., writes in Wisconsin 

 Agriculturist, September 7, 1899: 



*Iowa State Horticultural Society report 1891, p. 149; 1895, p. 453. 

 Minnesota State Horticultural Society report 1896, p. 498. 



