294 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURALSOCIETY. 



so he planted them with the tops; my trees were cut back and 

 lived, and his died. The next year he did as I did, and every one 

 of those trees are alive. The trees were trimmed to a pole. The 

 Board of Park Commissioners of Minneapolis has planted over ten 

 thousand trees, all of which were "poled." The loss has been less 

 than one per cent. Understand me distinctly, you cannot take 

 up a tree and cut off one-half or three-fourths of the roots and then 

 expect that tree to grow, unless a portion of the top is taken off. 

 I have not had the experience that your president has had in the 

 planting of fruit trees, and all I can say to the gentleman who 

 planted the trees without cutting back, and they all grew, is, that 

 they must have been very small trees. If you go to the woods 

 and pull up small trees you get all the roots, and they will live, 

 but when you take a tree of three or four inches through and do 

 not head them in you cannot make them live in this dry climate. 

 I should regret to have the endorsement of such a method as the 

 gentleman advocates go out from this society. As I have said, 

 perhaps with small trees it may do, as nature strives very hard to 

 keep the trees growing. When you come to take up and replant 

 large trees I do not believe it is possible to leave the tops on and 

 have the trees grow. 



Mr. Poore: The average farmer seeks the largest tree he can 

 get for the money, and, as stated, the smaller the tree the larger the 

 proportion of roots you can get. I consider the root of the tree 

 the life of the tree. I do not believe it is possible to take up a tree 

 without cutting off a number of roots. In transplanting the ever- 

 green you have a large percentage of fibrous roots. The life of the 

 tree being in the roots, you must cut the top if you cut the roots. 



Mr. S. D. Richardson: The nurserymen do not handle large 

 fruit trees. Trees three to four inches in diameter we have nothing 

 to do with. We handle trees two to four years old, and they are 

 not very large. Nurserymen handle small trees; they do not get 

 enough money for large trees. 



Mr. H. C. True (Iowa): There is a vast difference between 

 cutting back and pruning a tree. The greatest difficulty I find in 

 the caring of apple trees is that they almost invariably form too 

 much top. The farmer will ask the question, Shall we cut back the 

 tree? I generally recommend cutting back to a certain extent. 

 Where we cut back the whole top of the tree, it always forms new 

 branches and makes too large a top. I have seen farmers go to 

 work and cut off one-half of the limb of each tree and then, in af- 

 ter years, of course, the branches will increase and spread, and it 



