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180 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
Mr. Wedge: I do not want Mr. Nordine to give the budded plum 
too bad a reputation here, because I grow my own plums in that 
way. Our practice is to plant the pits in the spring and bud the 
shoots in August of the same year, and we have very good success 
in following that method. I find our budded trees are frequently 
six feet high, and some of them are seven feet high in one year from 
the time they are budded. 
Mr. Nordine: Mr. Wedge says he sows his plum pits in the spring, 
I cannot understand how he can get them to germinate, sprout and 
grow so they will be big enough to budin August. I have always 
found that itis necessary to plant our deciduous tree seeds in the 
fall. We necessarily have to have the winter freeze to operate on 
them so they will start nicely in the spring. Wenever let it go later 
than the 28th of July before we bud our plums. We never could 
grow seedlings large enough to make a good bud in the spring, 
therefore, we had to let them grow one year and winter them over, 
start them over again in the spring and growthem until about July 
20th; we then had them about as thick asthe finger. It takes time 
to heal that wound over, and you will find a piece of dead wood in 
there. You will find if you cut open the tree at that place, you will 
have a piece of dead wood. In speaking about the wound on the 
end of the scion,the scion we generally take is alittle bit smaller than 
the root, and we take a very sharp knife and makea slanting cut, 
and it will be closed over in a few days. 
Mr. Richardson: It is a fact that is well known to any one who 
has ever grafted, that the wood in the graft never unites. I nev- 
er saw any that did. With a whip-graft you have gota little smaller 
tree, and while I believe in practicing whip-grafting, I have seen on 
Mr. Wedge’s ground no more wood to cut off than on my whip-graft- 
ing. With the whip-graft, no matter how nicely it grows together, 
you can still find the point of union. 
Mr. Wedge: In regard to getting seedlings large enough to bud 
the first year, 1 do not have any difficulty. This year we had the 
greatest lot of seedlings we ever had. We always budin August, 
and I have even budded in September, but I did not have very good 
success then, but this year we had the finest lot of stocks to bud 
I have ever seen, and they were two and one-half to three feet high. 
Ithink it would bea good idea to sow them in the fall. We freeze 
them. 
Mr. Jewett: Do you findit necessary to mulch them? I find I have 
very good success without mulching at all. 
Mr. Wedge: Our soilisaclay soil, and it heaves very badly, and 
a good many pits would be onthe surface in the spring. Nature 
always provides a mulch for her seeds; I have sown pits without 
mulching, but have had better success when mulched. 
Mr. Wragg, (Iowa): We treat seedlings the same as Mr. Wedge 
does, plant the seed in the spring and bud them the next season, 
and we get one hundred percentevery time. In June we cut our 
bud stocks, we insert those terminal buds in the stock, then cut 
them right off. 
Mr.C. L.Smith: The point Mr. Wedge makes about sowing his 
