BIOGRAPHY OF EDSON GAYLORD. 85 



He gave all his earnings till twenty-one years of age to his parents, 

 and much of them afterwards. He built a house for them near his 

 own, went east and settled their estate, and taking what was left 

 (two hundred and forty-two dollars), moved his invalid parents and 

 two then invalid sisters west and cared for the father, mother and 

 one of the sisters as long as they lived. 



Of the nine original members of the family, ]\Ir. Gaylord is the 

 only one now living. 



July 21, 1857, Mr. Gaylord was married to ]Miss Helen M. Lamb 

 of Crystal Lake, 111. They have one son, Wallace E., and one 

 daughter, Vienna. Mr. Gaylord built the house which he now oc- 

 cupies as a home, in 1866, using one hundred thousand brick and 

 five hundred bushels of lime. The brick, lime, stone, sand and most 

 of the lumber were obtained from the land he had deeded from the 

 government. 



He set his first apple trees in the spring of '54, on a "fourth rate" 

 site, and has been setting and re-setting ever since. His experience 

 has taught him that to be successful, trees must have hardy roots, 

 stems and crotches, with the leading branches top-worked. He has 

 now succeeded in fruiting one hundred choice varieties on his fourth 

 rate site, and has one hundred more now coming into bearing. Mr. 

 Gaylord has never set a tree except for home or friends, and never 

 has sold a tree or had any interest in the sale of any nursery stock. 

 He judges the value of all varieties from his own experience of their 

 real worth and from over forty years' observation of other orchards 

 for many miles about him. 



Mr. Gaylord claims to be the first man, east or west, to declare 

 in public that the sun, not wind, caused trees to grow northeast (la. 

 R- '79' P- 317) ; ^^^ ^Iso to publish and denounce the common prac- 

 tice of growing our trees on tender roots (la. R. '86, p. 188, "A 

 Blow at the Root"). Also to demonstrate to the public that close 

 protection was ruinous, by exhibiting fourteen varieties from closely 

 protected sites, and fourteen of the same varieties from unprotected 

 sites. These specimens were presented to the Iowa State Horticul- 

 tural Society meeting at Cedar Falls. Those from protected sites 

 w^ere dark brown, those from unprotected sites clear white. The 

 following fall he examined eight protected orchards, in which the 

 trees had grown three inches and were seriously injured, while those 

 of unprotected orchards had grown twelve, without injury. 



As to what he has done in giving us back so many of our old 

 favorite apples, which we had given up so reluctantly, we can here 

 only refer to some few of his latest contributions, viz: la. R. '85, p. 

 166; Minn. R. '86, p. 116; la. R. '92, p. 457; la. R. '93, p. 322; la. R. 



