NURSERY CULTURE OF THE APPLE. 335 



ations or where root-killing is apt to cause trouble. They are desir- 

 able in certain situations where other trees cannot be used. I want 

 to insist that you do not do any piece root-grafting on Siberian stocks 

 in the nursery, but bud on the stocks or do crown-grafting, which is 

 practically the same thing. It must be understood, from the very 

 beginning, in all our discussions, we should state whether it was 

 piece root-grafted or budded. 



Col. C. L. Watrous (Iowa) : It is certainly not any experiment 

 where it has been tried, ground-grafting and budding and then 

 planting in the orchard. 



Prof. Hansen : I do not know of any in the United States. I 

 do know it has been done in some instances in Gemiany and in the 

 northern part of Russia. 



Mr. S. D. Richardson : I am a nurseryman and have had some 

 experience in this root-killing business and have seen it in a good 

 many orchards in my section of the country, and as far as I know 

 it is the nurseryman that stands the brunt of the loss by tender stock 

 root-killing. After the tree gets large enough to go out of the nur- 

 sery and stand for itself, if it is properly cared for there is no dan- 

 ger of root-killing, and in my experience since 1885 I have never had 

 a large sized tree root-killed. I have lost lots of trees one and two 

 years old that have been transplanted, and I have lost them by root- 

 killing, but I have never lost any by root-killing where the ground 

 was covered. Further north there may be danger, but where the 

 ground is covered I do not believe there is any danger of root-killing. 

 I have had black walnut trees root-killed ; I lost a great many by 

 root-killing. On a patch of ground that was clean I lost every black 

 walnut that was on it. Bare ground will kill young stocks. 



Col. C. L. Watrous (Iowa) : It seems to me the sum of all 

 this is that whoever attempt to try to raise a nursery of apple trees 

 on the Siberian pyrus baccata stock, whether it be Russian or other- 

 wise, is treading on extremely thin ice, and his experiments should 

 not involve more money and time than he is able to lose. I have 

 been watching Prof. Hansen's experiments for some time and noted 

 what he put forth in a paper that contained many excellent things. 

 One of his statements was that the day of piece root-grafting in the 

 northwest was practically obsolete. If we could succeed by his plan 

 whereby root-killing could be avoided we could afiford to take up 

 something new, but if we go into it on a large scale it may be at a 

 loss to the nurseryman and to the planter of the trees, and it ought to 

 be gone into very carefully and proved in some way at the state ex- 

 periment stations, and that for a number of years, until the matter 

 has been decided, until it has been fully decided. There is one thing 

 that has not been spoken of here, and that is, that some good success 

 has been had in propagating our common apple tree on the crab, on 

 this same pyrus baccata, that is grown up to be five or six years old. 

 The growth of the current year is used as a scion. Mr. Williams, of 

 Nebraska, told Prof. Craig and myself that that was the only way 

 in which he had success, and he puts it up a foot or two from the 

 bottom of the tree ; but he says in his experience the one thing you 

 must not fail to do is to allow the crab tree to have its own top. If 



