148 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



The first time I was impressed with the idea of doing- it was at 

 your meeting held at Rochester, the year you offered the premium 

 for the best essay on topworking. That year I bought some Virginia 

 crab trees from Mr. Grimes. Mr. Sias gave a $5.00 premium to the 

 one who could show the best growth of an apple tree. He had a 

 shoot of the Virginia crab that had grown five and one-half feet that 

 season. That convinced me that it was vigorous. I went home and 

 topworked five different trees. When I get hold of something new, I 

 am anxious to get it to growing as soon as possible, so I secured 

 scions and topworked as soon as I could. I topwork for several 

 reasons, and the first is to increase hardiness;! have proved that to 

 my entire satisfaction. Then I topwork to increase longevity, and I 

 have abundant proof that it does that. I topwork to increase pro- 

 ductiveness, and I have proof that it does that. I topwork to in- 

 crease the size and quality of the fruit, and I have proof that it does 

 both. I wrote two years ago to Prof. Bailey, of Cornell, — he wanted 

 some leaves and fruit of the Virginia crab — I sent him some — he 

 wanted to see some fruit that had been topworked. I sent him an 

 Utter's Red, Wolf River, McMahon White and Wealthy. Then I sent 

 him the same number of specimens that grew on their own roots of 

 the same varieties. His answer was this, that every apple of the 

 topworked trees was as good in quality as it was on its own roots, 

 and he said he thought the McMahon White was a little better. I 

 topwork to increase size. I took those four varieties because they 

 had such good fruit. I have trees in my orchard topworked on the 

 Virginia crab, labelled "for exhibition purposes." I get better spec- 

 imens. I took to our fair last j^ear topworked specimens of Utter's 

 Red that were the finest I saw there. In regard to the quality, I do 

 not see why the quality should deteriorate any, for the reason that 

 the Virginia when ripe is of a good qualit}\ 



Now, to tell you or to show you that I believe what I preach, I will 

 say that for three or four years I have been setting two hundred 

 trees a year. They are Hibernal, Duchess, Longfield and McMahon, 

 but every alternate tree is a Virginia crab. People might think we 

 were going to have a large lot of Virginia crabs, but I topwork them 

 as soon as they are fit. I have topworked trees there that will sta3\ 

 Now, I said a moment ago that I topworked to increase longevity. 

 Fifteen years ago I had about fifty Haas trees on their own roots, 

 beginning to bear, and I also had five trees of the Haas topworked 

 that began to bear about the same time. Last year every single one 

 of those Haas trees on their own roots was dead and gone, but the 

 topworked trees are still there and bear fruit. A Fameuse tree that 

 Uncle Wilcox gave me fifteen years ago is still bearing; it was top- 

 worked. There is abundant evidence that we can increase the life of 

 a tree by topworking. As Mr. Owen said last night, people will ROt 

 pay much attention to what j'^ou say. If a man should come down 

 to my orchard, as Mr. Sampson and Mr. Gould did, and see the evi- 

 dence in favor of topworking, he would make up his mind there was 

 something in it. 



Mr. Pearce: Did you ever investigate the effect that top- 

 grafting had on the roots? 



