HORTICULTURAL FRAUDS. 275 
£o came to me,and I showed them over my nursery, used them like 
- gentlemen; and then they went out and said they had examined my 
nursery,and I had acknowledged I set budded trees, not root grafts. 
For the last seven years I have shipped apples by carloads to Min- 
neapolis. They said I was too smart to grow root grafts. 
One of the best of our most intelligent men,whom I had known and 
who had been in business for twenty-five years in our town, bought 
a lot of their stock. I said to him, “Your orchard has been a suc- 
cess, why do you buy that?” He said he thought it was worth try- 
ing. When the trees were delivered my partner came to me and 
said he wished I would go up and expose their fraud, and this man 
came to me and said he wanted me to come and tell him whether 
his trees were budded or not. I went up there to the depot where 
they had the trees,and there was one man there who had boughta 
small bill and paid forit. I looked over the stock and knew enough 
to know a black-hearted tree when I saw it. I asked him if he would 
take forty cents fora tree I picked up. He said he would; I paid 
him the money, took out my knife and whittled right down to the 
root. I came tothe root graftin perfect shape. One of the agents 
tan across the room and wanted to know what I was doing. I told 
him it was my tree,and I had paid forit. He said, “Don’t you touch 
a tree that belongsto me.” There were twenty men in there at 
least, and I said Iwas going to show those men who had bought 
trees howthey had been defrauded, and that I would put up two 
dollars to their one that every single tree they had there was noth- 
ing but aroot graft. [told the agent right there he lied and he 
knew he lied, and I told the farmers he had got their money under 
false pretenses. The agent left town, and we have never had a bud- 
; ded tree man there since, and I take a little pride insayingit. They 
took it up and advertised it in the papers how we had exposed the 
frauds that came into our state. 
I think this is the proper way to meet those things; investigate 
them and expose the fraud. I think,if we were not quite so delicate 
in what we said when we know a fraud is being committed, it might 
be very beneficial to those people who are being defrauded. 
; Pres. Underwood: Is there any one else who would like to say ~ 
anything on this subject? Weare discussing horticultural frauds. 
- Mr. Wedge: Mr. Dartt seems to think that if we will depend upon 
. education we can overcome this evil, as it is only fools that are 
taken in. Heis very much mistaken in that matter. There may be 
horticultural fools among the better posted farmers—level headed 
men who are not often taken in by frauds of any kind—but our 
state is not blessed with a great many horticultural wiseacres, The 
. greater share of our people are fools, horticulturally speaking, and 
it will take a great many years to educate them. If the budded tree 
:. fraud is discovered and becomes a stale thing, then they handle 
; the seedling fruit or old root grafted trees; there is no limit to 
: fraud. I apprehend that members of the State Horticultural Society 
4 are not taken in by these frauds, but you must remember that our 
S membership is not one-tenth per cent. of the people of the state; 
No, not one thousanth of one per cent. 
