BUDDING AS A MEANS OF IMPROVING FRUITS. 427 



The President : I heard of that being practiced to some extent 

 when I was a boy, fifty-five years ago, splitting buds, uniting one-half 

 of each in the limb, binding them tightly, and it was said they would 

 produce apples one-half of which would have the characteristics of 

 the tree from which one-half the bud was taken and the other half 

 would be like the other bud, or that the tree itself would be divided, 

 that one-half would produce one kind and the other half another 

 kind, but I said to myself if that were true we should have them 

 everywhere. It has been fifty-five years since I heard that, but the 

 method has not come into general use. 



Mr. Gibbs : Any sort of a story that comes from California can 

 be deemed credible after what Mr. Burbank has done. Our ex- 

 periment stations are all keeping their eye on him, or, as the saying 

 is, "watching his smoke." We should all do well to study what that 

 man is doing in performing these wonders in producing new fruits. 



Mr. H. V. Poore: I want to give the experience of an uncle 

 of mine. The thought occurred to me that I might drop here a few 

 remarks that might assist us in these root-grafting experiments. I 

 think most of our choice fruits, such as apples, are chance pro- 

 ductions produced, as Prof. Hansen has shown us, by cross fertiliza- 

 tion. There are thousands of places in the state where there is no 

 fruit of any kind. In my observations of the different varieties of 

 plums and apples on the prairies, where they are so widely separated 

 that there is no chance of cross fertilization, it occurred to me as 

 a very good plan to isolate the best from other varieties and save 

 the seed from those fruits, and with choice seeds we could make a 

 thousand experiments of that kind, and with intelligent care definite 

 results might be reported each year after the seeds were brought to 

 the point of fruiting. I have made an effort by grafting two va- 

 rieties and setting the tree away off by itself and where there is no 

 chance for the bees to fertilize the blossoms and then saving the 

 pits of those varieties for planting. It is my belief that we can cross 

 breeds the same as we do with anything else and obtain good results. 



The President : I do not believe that anything is ever done by 

 chance. I thought at first Mr. Poore did, but before he got through 

 he convinced us that he wants to go about this work scientifically to 

 bring this about. A new fruit is not going to be chance work, but 

 the result of wise work on his part. I think it is so with every new 

 fruit we have. There is no chance about them, but they come in 

 consonance with fixed laws. There is no chance about it. 



Mr. Poore : The reason I made that statement is because when 

 we ask where a fruit comes from, we are answered that it is sup- 

 posed to come from this or it is supposed to come from that. What 

 I meant by chance was that we do not know where certain fruits 

 come from, and if we get such results what would we get if we put 

 forth intelligent effort ! 



