PTRU8 BACCATA AS A STOCK FOR THE APPLE. 1 77 



Mr. Elliot: There is one question I want to ask in regard 

 to saving seed. Do' you mix it or keep it separate for testing? 



Mr. Patten: We have kept the Whitney No. 20 separate 

 niostly from the other kinds. 



Mr. Kellogg: Were your seedlings sufficiently large to root- 

 graft piece roots? 



Mr. Patten: Yes, in my experiments the seedlings of this 

 Pyrus baccata were sufficiently strong to graft. They were grow- 

 ing on new land under very good cultivation, and they were cer- 

 tainly a fine lot of seedlings, standing from twelve to thirty inches 

 high. 



Mr. Kellogg: Your seedlings of Whitney No. 20 was the 

 stronger? 



Mr. Patten : Yes, they were the stronger ; they were very 

 vigorous, as were also those from the Briar Sweet, and I learned 

 from Mr. Underwood's paper that the Orange crab is the same, 

 just what I would expect from those hybrids. They have those 

 two things in common, vigor and hardiness, and those seedlings 

 will compare favorably, indeed, with the best Pyrus baccata. 



Mr. A. Norby (S. D.) : I live about 35 miles south of Brook- 

 ings, where Prof. Hansen is carrying on this experiment, and I 

 see that our conditions must vary quite a little even in that short 

 distance. I believe in that hard winter we did not suffer so much 

 from root-killing as they did in Iowa, and I will tell you what I 

 would advise from a little experience I had. I had a row of 

 Martha crabs, which stood in a grove for twenty-two years — 

 and I might say, by the way, that I grubbed them all out this 

 fall. I got the trees in that grove from Bloomington, Illinois. 

 They had been on cultivated ground until they were large trees. 

 In grubbing those trees this fall I was surprised to find them 

 with such a large amount of big roots. They may have been 

 on Pyrus baccata stock, but I could hardly believe it. The roots 

 seemed to hold out much longer than the tops. They were very 

 large and strong — but it is probably only fair to state that on t'^e 

 north side of them there were some weeds where snow would 

 drift in, while at other places the ground was bare. Thev were 

 planted very shallow, and it was a surprise to me, after all I had 

 heard, that those roots were as sound as they were when I took 

 them up. I believe we can grow apple roots in South Dakota 

 that will stand as well as they do in central Iowa, better than 

 they have stood in central Iowa for the past three years. 



Mr. Philips : I want to give you a little Wisconsin experi- 

 ence in regard to a point Mr. Underwood brought out about 

 crab roots. We did have two or three honest nurserymen, and 

 we have some yet I guess. Father Wilcox, of La Crosse, and 

 Mr. Jewell, of Lake City, were honest men. Mr. Jewell called 

 my attention to this crab ; that is where I first saw it. I kept two 

 or three of the trees to remember him by. Mr. Wilcox was al- 

 most hooted out of our society because he advised grafting on 

 crab roots. He stuck to it, however, and he came up to our farm 

 one year and brought with him one dozen of as handsome trees 



