150 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Mr. Philips: Is that Malinda tree that bore the twenty-five 

 bushels grafted in that way? 



Mr. Somerville: Yes, that is grafted right on the stump. I 

 have a number of trees in my orchard in the same fix. It cer- 

 tainly did not kill the roots, or they never could have lived. I 

 do not like to think that of the trunk, and if I had done that, 

 according to Mr. Pearce and Mr. Harris, the tree would have 

 died. Let me tell you some more. Some fourteen years ago, 

 I had some Transcendent crab trees, and they branched down 

 near the ground, and one side fell right off and split down to 

 the ground. I let it lay until the next spring, and I told my 

 men I wanted that thing up, we would raise it up. We raised 

 it up and I tied the tree together with a chain at the top, and I 

 set a scion right in one side of the tree and run it up to the 

 other side and let it stay there two years, and by that time it 

 had taken a pretty good hold, and I am right sure it is now all 

 of five inches across, and now no one could pull the tree apart. 

 In my orchard I take a sprout across and put it on the other 

 side. Have you ever tried that. Prof. Hansen? I have a num- 

 ber of trees large and small, and when I find a water sprout 

 coming out of one trunk I take ifty knife and put it right across 

 on the other side, and it holds together there in very fine shape. 

 It was a new thing for me when I first tried it. I had never 

 seen the like, and I was going to see how it would do. I fol- 

 lowed it with all my trees and have them tied together in that 

 form. 



Mr. Brackett: Didn't new bark come in the split of the fork? 



Mr. Somerville: It is as solid there now as in any other part 

 of the tree. You would have to look pretty sharp to find it now. 

 I have others as large as my arm that have been put in since 

 then. 



Mr. S. D. Richardson: Did the split at the bottom of the 

 tree ever heal over? 



Mr. Somerville: Oh, yes; you cannot tell that there was ever 

 anything the matter with that tree. For fear that I might leave 

 a wrong impression here today in regard to what I said yester- 

 day of the number of bushels of apples that grew on my place, 

 I wish to explain my statement. I said we raised 1,500 bushels. 

 That is, if they had all matured, but there were lots knocked 

 off. I did not sell that many this year. Some storms we had 

 blew them off immature. We did not get one-half that number 

 of bushels of ripe apples. Thus, whether I intended it or not, 



