I80 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



by transplanting the seedlings one year and carrying them over^ 

 I do not believe you can get a tree so that it will survive such 

 winters. The seedling is a small seedling, as I understand it. 

 I had at one time fifty varieties top-worked on one tree, but 

 it killed the tree. I had thirty-six varieties, but it finished the 

 tree ; it did not dwarf the tree, but it killed it. We can grow 

 these Pyrus baccata roots and adapt them to the nursery. 



Mr. Elliot : Do you think there is any value in these hybrid 

 roots in a practical way? 



Mr. Kellogg: Yes.' 



Mr. Elliot : If customers will pay for them we can furnish 

 them trees on crab roots? 



Mr. Kellogg: Yes, if they are willing to pay for them they 

 can be furnished. 



Prof. Hansen : I think the nurserymen have been falling over 

 themselves to make stock too cheap, and in this strenuous com- 

 petition they have adopted inferior methods. I think that is the 

 reason why so much contempt is expressed in Europe for piece- 

 root grafting. But Mr. Patten's experiment was not a test of the 

 proposed method. I insisted all the time that piece-root grafting 

 on the stock is no test of the matter whatever. 



The Chairman : Having any start, would you consider it a 

 fair test? 



Prof. Hansen : I would not, because the Siberian crab, the 

 short piece, has no chance to dominate the top, so it is neither one 

 or the other. I believe Mr. Patten's idea of using hybrid crab 

 seeds is all right, as all the trees I saw propagated at the Agri- 

 cultural College at Moscow on hybrid crabs (Pyrus prunifolia) 

 as well as on Pyrus baccata were all right. Dr. Schroeder 

 showed me nursery trees there that were fine looking, that were 

 grafted right at the collar at the surface of the ground. I be- 

 lieve you should keep the crab root strictly below the surface, 

 but Mr. Patten's plan should certainly be tested. 



Mr. Patten : Was not my experiment a fair test as to piece- 

 root grafting on the crab root? 



Prof. Hansen : I consider it so, a fair and square test, and 

 in connection with the European opinions regarding piece-root 

 grafting I consider it conclusive. But I maintain, however, that 

 Mr. Patten's failure with piece-root grafting is not a test 

 of the Russian method, in which the entire root-system is Si- 

 berian crab and the entire part of the tree above ground is of the 

 cultivated apple. In this way the crab root can better control 

 the size of the top. 



In visiting Mr. Norby's orchard the past summer I saw the 

 Martha crab trees referred to ; they were certainly large, vig- 

 orous trees but just as unproductive as the Martha crab trees 

 in the Station orchard at Brookings. In both places the foliage 

 of this variety was badly scabbed ; the season, however, was 

 exceptionally wet and very favorable to leaf troubles of all kinds. 



In the winter of 1898-9 the scion roots of the Virginia crab 

 proved hardy in the Station orchard at Brookings. Both Martha- 



