92 ANNUAL REPORT 



answered by individuals from Geneva, N. Y., to Wassau, 111., all 

 admitting destruction by root- killing. Now, this is not from mem- 

 ory; I have it in my scrap book. 1 do not think it necessary to 

 write out the questions or answers. I will, however, give extracts 

 from a few: 



P. Barry, Rochester, N. Y. " Instances are rare of trouble of 

 this kind. One winter, some twenty years ago, and last winter the 

 only instances in thirty-five years. In both instances the winters 

 were not remarkable for their low temperature but for their long 

 continuance; much wind and little snow. The injuries were all 

 sustained on elevated spots, where the wind blew off the snow and 

 left the ground exposed to frost." 



From D. R. Waters, Spring Lake, Mich. " I am of the opinion 

 that trees on dry soil suffered most. Trees were not generally 

 favored with a covering of snow. All root-killed trees leaved out 

 again and some of them, especially on ridges, blossomed, when the 

 same variety of uninjured were blossomless the same season; but 

 the injured trees soon withered." 



In conclusion, I will call your attention to an experience in 

 planting an orchard that my friend, Thos. Petty, Esq., had in 

 purchasing trees for an orchard four years ago. He was imposed 

 upon, inasmuch as he received and planted as a valuable variety of 

 the peach, fifty almond trees. During the four years these trees 

 have stood in the ground, he has found but two borers, although 

 they have been hunted twice a year in common with his other 

 trees; and although the peach trees all around those fifty trees have 

 been root-killed, not one of these almond trees have suffered. As 

 a remedy against root-killing, and also borers, does not this expe- 

 rience suggest to nurserymen that it might be valuable to put the 

 peach on the almond stock, and would this not also be another 

 guard against the "Yellows?" Now, this writer has gone back to 

 the origin of the peach, and given some valuable suggestions. I 

 propose to go back to the origin of the apple and follow with my 

 experience in propagating it. 



From Downing, transplanted into a warmer aspect, stimulated 

 by a richer soil, reared from selected seeds, carefully pruned, shel- 

 tered and watched, by slow degrees the sour and bitter crab expands 

 into a golden pippen; the wild pear loses its thorns and becomes a 

 Bergamott or a Beurre; the almond is deprived of its bitterness 

 and the dry and flavorless peach is at length a tempting and delicious 

 fruit. Now, in producing such great changes in these fruits, is it 

 not reasonable to suppose the trees have been weakened and their 

 vitality destroyed? 



After the destruction of our orchard and nursery in 1872-3. 

 which was grown in the usual way, bv grafting on the common 

 apple root, and seeing how well crab seedlings survived on t heir 

 own roots, we adopted the following plan: Plant crab seeds and 

 then graft the Transcendent crab in the roots of the crab seedlings, 

 and when these trees were three years old, bud the kind of stan d- 

 ard apple we wished to grow, into the limbs of Transcendents. 

 We made this plan public and met with a good deal of ridicul e 

 from nurserymen generally. That old veteran, Charles Hamilton 



