62 



EXPERIMENT STATION. 



[Jan. 



Paradise stocks are also grown chiefly in France, and in the 

 same manner as the Doucin stocks. They are still dwarfer in 

 character, and when budded with ordinary varieties produce 

 very small trees. Some of these trees bear fruit abundantly at 

 two or three years old, and appear to be mature at a height of 

 8 feet, or even less. 



This difference in growth may be seen in the nursery to some 

 extent, though usually the dwarfing effect of the Doucin and 

 Paradise stocks is less obvious there than after the trees are 

 planted in the orchard. This reservation is especially neces- 

 sary in the case of the Baldwin apple, which shows a special 

 aptitude for the Doucin stock. Yet the general influence of 

 the different stocks is seen in a comparison of the growth of 

 two-year-old nursery trees given below : — 



The last of these figures, ratio of height to diameter, is the 

 most significant. A small ratio indicates what the nurseryman 

 calls a "stocky" tree. All the figures, however, indicate that 

 considerable differences exist between the three lots of Baldwin 

 trees propagated in the three different kinds of stocks. 



However, averages are apt to be misleading, and they never 

 tell the whole story. More information can be conveyed if we 

 adopt the graphic method, as in Figs. 1, 2 and 3, in which each 

 entire group of trees is represented. Here the very different 

 characters of the curves, as well as their differing positions in 

 their enclosing rectangles, indicate the very striking differences 

 in the three lots of nursery trees. The tall, narrow, smooth 

 curve in No. 2 shows that the trees on Doucin stocks were much 

 more uniform than on the other two. As the short, stocky 

 trees are placed at the left of each curve with the tall, slim ones 

 at the right, it is easily seen that the trees on Paradise were 

 much stockier than those on Doucin, and those on Doucin were 

 in turn shorter and stockier than those on ordinary stocks. 



