308 LUTHER BURBANK 



in my own orchard, is to economize space and 

 save time. As to the former point, it will be 

 obvious that where hundreds of grafts from 

 different seedlings are grafted on branches of 

 a single tree, we are enabled to watch develop- 

 ments among these hundred of specimens, and 

 by uprooting the original seedlings to utilize the 

 ground they occupy for other purposes. 



As to time saving, I have discovered that by 

 grafting cions near the tip of the branches of 

 the foster parent, instead of near its trunk, the 

 cion comes much earlier to maturity, and bears 

 fruit in the second season instead of having to 

 wait until the third or fourth, or many years, as 

 otherwise would be required. 



So it is that on a single tree in my orchard 

 half a thousand different seedlings may be tested 

 simultaneously; and by the practice of selection 

 of early-bearing varieties during the past fort} 7 " 

 years, I have produced a type of seedlings which 

 almost invariably bear the second year from 

 grafting. Indeed, so universal is this, that not 

 one unfruited cion in a thousand will be saved 

 for the third year unless it possesses some re- 

 markable quality of growth, or shows peculiarly 

 prominent and rounded buds, associated with 

 the thick, broad foliage that betokens unusual 

 possibilities of future fruit bearing. 



