154 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



orchard also twice while in bloom, and as often as the corn field 

 afterward. 



I cultivate when in bloom for two reasons: One is to stir the 

 ground so that the air and earth can make a connection, and that 

 makes electricity, and when you have got that started you have got 

 action in the air, which gives new life power to the buds and 

 blossoms. The second reason is that cultivation produces growth, 

 and there are no leaves to grow, so there must be a growth in the 

 blossoms. Why does growth in the blossoms aid fertilization ? Be- 

 cause it enlarges the calyx, or cup, that holds the ovule, or little plum, 

 and by enlarging that it lets the pollen fall down around the ovule, 

 and that does the work of the bee. 



Now in regard to spraying: I did not spray my old orchard, 

 but I did spray my young trees twice, not to kill the curculio, for 

 my cultivation seemed to do that, but later in the season to kill the 

 Hession fly. If I had not killed them, they would certainly have 

 killed my plum trees. 



WHOLE-ROOT VS. PIECE-ROOT GRAFTS. 



A. T. COLLMAN, CORNING, lA. 



No class of men have been handicapped and crippled by mis- 

 representation in business as have the honest horiculturists who 

 are selling honest trees at living prices. He has had to face the 

 kid gloved gent with his tree strawberries, budded apple trees 

 and sweet gooseberries, who probably never budded a tree or 

 even saw one budded ; who travels on a borrowed name or firm 

 and buys cheap trees and plants at wholesale to fill his orders and 

 don't care whether the stock is true in name or otherwise, or 

 whether budded or grafted on whole or piece roots. 



But the greatest delusion of the present age, in the business 

 world, is the whole-root-grafts. It is not advisable, if it were 

 practicable. It is now an established fact that only ten per cent 

 of all our apple seedlings are hardy enough to stand our severe 

 winters, even as far south as the 40th parallel. It is a Divine 

 command to build on a solid foundation, and we know that this 

 is true in all practical and scientific questions. 



The whole root men tell us that the seedling root uncut forms 

 the tap root for the tree to draw the moisture and the nourish- 

 ment to make the tree long lived and fruitful, when just the op- 

 posite is true; roots will go down to moisture then branch off 

 after nitrogenous food for the tree. So we see it is not practica- 

 ble to graft a short scion on a whole root from fifteen to eighteen 



