PROPAGATING APPLE-TREES. 51 



der variety be worked on inferior stocks as they often are 

 in large nurseries what can be expected from the tree? 

 There are untold numbers of apple trees of this character 

 all over our country ; and they can never be made to yield 

 abundant crops, even if the tops are regrafted and the soil 

 renovated. It is well known that many tree-peddlers are 

 not over-scrupulous in their business. They will sell a per- 

 son any variety of fruit-trees he may desire to purchase, 

 whether they -have such trees in their possession or not. 

 This is frequently done. Tree-peddlers have told us that 

 they have often sold any variety of apple-trees that they 

 had in their possession, for other varieties that were called 

 for. They received their price for the spurious trees, which 

 was all they cared for. 



It will usually require six to ten years to determine an 

 error, or trick, or fraud, in the purchase of fruit-trees. And 

 even then, no person who hates strife and the uncertainties 

 of legal contests would undertake to ferret out a swindler 

 in the purchase of fruit-trees ; but there may be the trees, 

 after ten or twenty years, comparatively worthless cum- 

 berers of the land. There are but few orchards in the 

 country in which more or less worthless trees can not be 

 found. 



Again, even when excellent apple-trees are ordered of a 

 reliable nurseryman, it often happens that all the small 

 roots are thoroughly dried up and killed before the trees 

 are transplanted where they are to grow. Tree-diggers 

 are frequently ordered to take up several thousand trees 

 with a horse-digger, leaving hundreds of them lying in a 

 hot sun, and exposed to drying winds for half a day, or 

 even longer. Then, before the roots are wrapped in moss, 

 there is not a vestige of vitality in many of them. In many 

 instances, a car-load of fruit-trees is shipped several hun- 

 dred miles, when they are tumbled into a hay-rigging and 



