CRITICISMS OF NURSERYMEN. 4I3; 



more fruitful afterwards. The second tree will grow smooth and 

 straight and look much nicer, but its gro\vth will be wood until 

 late in its life or until something is done to bring it into bearing. 

 Many nurserymen have experimented and proven the correctness 

 of the principle, but people want cheap, large, straight, smooth- 

 barked trees and insist on having them and are so grounded in prej- 

 udice that sales cannot be effected at a price which will justify the 

 additional expense of maintaining an orchard under conditions to> 

 furnish the well-developed grafts. 



"So long as the man who furnishes the big, smooth tree at the 

 smallest price gets the order there is no inducement to make the- 

 change. The change, however, is coming, and in the not distant 

 future every nurseryman will have to give evidence that his trees are 

 not all wood, but that they have a fruit-producing organism devel- 

 oped in them, so we shall not have to wait ten years longer than 

 necessary in order that we may get returns for labor and care." 



You have all read the story of the Prodigal Son. I will not re- 

 peat it, but I will simply recall to your mind the fact that he never 

 amounted to much and never started back on the road to reclama- 

 tion until he sat down and thought. If this paper shall set the 

 nurseryman and the farmer to thinking, it will be the best thing 

 that could happen. The time is ripe for them to meet on common 

 ground, be friends and work for each other's welfare. So mote 

 it be! 



PROTECTING APPLE BLOSSOMS FROM FROST. 



N. C. RADABAUGH, MINNEAPOLIS. 



My story is a short one. There is so little to be said it is hardly 

 worth while to take up your time. I have been .considerably inter- 

 ested in growing fruit since coming to this state. When a small 

 boy I set out my first trees, in the fall of 1858, and it has been a. 

 little side issue largely along the lines of pleasure. I was from 

 southern Ohio, and my grandfather was a practical horticulturist,, 

 and he sent the boy a few trees at that early date. I will state right 

 here that some of the remnants of those trees that he sent nie at 

 that time are still in existence and have gone through the process. 

 They have gone through the process of dying down and coming 

 up until they seem to be perfectly hardy at the present time. The 

 trees are on the old homestead in Wabasha county, and there is a 

 little cluster of perhaps one hundred or more. 



Now what I was expected to tell was a little experience I have 

 had with retarding or, in other words, holding back trees in this 

 countr}-, for we all know that one of the worst things we haA'e 



