200 ANNUAL KEPOKT. 



Mr. Sias. About twenty j-ears ago I advocated that same doctrine. 

 I went to selling root grafts, and I only found one man that succeeded 

 with them. He is not a nureryman, and never has been, but is one of 

 the best practical gardeners I ever knew. He watched them, took care 

 of them, and from those root grafts he had a spendid orchard. He had 

 eastern varieties'from Rochester, N. Y. And he was the only man I 

 ever knew that succeeded. Farmers, as a rule, will not take care of 

 plants; they neglect them when they are small. They only have to 

 neglect them for a single year in order to have them die. H we could 

 "make over" the farmers then it would be all right; but it seems to 

 me, as^we have to take things as they are, that it is better for the 

 nurserymen to nurse the plants until they get to be three or four years 

 old. The farmers have succeeded with that class of trees the best. 



Mr, Tuttle. I have seen both methods practiced, and I can't see any 

 difference — not a particle. As to cultivating, we used to think, a few 

 years ago, that we must cultivate the fore part of the season, and then 

 leave the trees growing in the grass. That was when we didn't grow 

 Russians. We can cultivate the Russian apple; I find no difficulty, 

 neither in the yearlings nor in the others. There is no trouble with 

 the Russian apples from late cultivation. 



I have never had any trouble from root-killing in the orchard; if T 

 did, I would mulch the trees. The trees that were mulched on sandy 

 land in 1872 and 1873 came through all right. If I was setting an or- 

 chard on sand I would mulch the trees in the fall, always throwing 

 dirt around them. Your trees would always be secure in the sand; 

 hard soil freezes much deeper and harder than lighter and more porous 

 soil, especially [if ]you get on gravel. Freezing will kill anything. 

 Any kind of mulching'.will prevent excessive freezing. T have exam- 

 ined orchards where nearly every tree was killed, — an orchard set 

 thirty-five years ago, and on quite sandy land. The trees had gotten 

 to be of considerable size, and finally nearly all of them died, and 

 sprouts were coming from the roots. 



It has been a pet theory that we must take the crab in order to get 

 good roots; but we have found that the crab is not fit fo graft a com- 

 mon apple on to, either in the top or root. I would like to use crab 

 grafts if they were of any value. I had but very few apples last fall, 

 I ground up some of my crab apples for cider, and piled up the pomace. 

 I should very much have liked to wash out the seeds for planting, but 

 I|had tried it and knew it to be worse than worthless. 



A Member. Couldn't you use the seeds of the Transcendent for 

 root orrafts ? 



