THE STRINGFELLOW THEORY 237 



upon which the superiority of this stub -root sys- 

 tem is assumed to rest : Seedling non- trans- 

 planted trees are longer -lived, hardier and 

 healthier than the trees of orchards ; this su- 

 periority is largely due to the presence of a tap- 

 root system ; the nearer the transplanted tree is 

 reduced to the form of a young seedling or cut- 

 ting, the greater is its tendency to develop a 

 tap-root system. All these categories are mere 

 assumptions. The old seedling trees at which 

 we wonder are a few out of many. For every 

 one that has reached a hale old age, hundreds 

 have probably perished; and since the dead are 

 not in evidence, we enlarge the exception into 

 the rule. As a matter of fact, the orchards of 

 to-day, at least in the East, are more uniformly 

 healthy and productive than the seedling or- 

 chards of other days. In our time, every 

 break in the orchard is missed and commented 

 upon ; in those times, the breaks were of small 

 consequence.* 



In the second place, a tap-root is not an in- 



*A fuller discussion of this question may be read in Essay XX., 

 "Survival of the Unlike". Mr. Stringfellow cites such seedlings as the 

 original tree of Sudduth pear and Mammoth Black Twig apple. It 

 would be interesting to know what has become of all the other seed- 

 ling pears and apples which presumably started at about the same time. 

 Such trees are isolated facts, not averages; they do not necessarily 

 show laws or tendencies. It is easy to find such patriarchs among 

 grafted and transplanted trees. For example, the so-called original 

 Tompkins County King apple is a grafted and transplanted tree, and 

 it still bears well, although about seventy years old, and outliving 

 most of its progeny. 



