PROPAGATION 23 



but budding is simpler, speedier, and usually the 

 cheaper process in the nursery. In the upper Missis- 

 sippi Valley, where plums are somewhat extensively 

 worked on Americana plum roots, grafting is rather 

 common. The side graft and the whip graft are the 

 forms most used. 



The theory of the production of a dwarf fruit tree 

 by the restraining of its growth has already been 

 mentioned in another chapter. The dwarf stock 

 simply supplies less food than is required for the 

 normal growth of the variety under propagation, and 

 the tree is, in a sense, starved or stunted into its dwarf 

 stature. 



As the selection of proper stocks the adaptation 

 of stock to cion is one of the fundamental problems 

 in dwarf fruit growing, we may now address our- 

 selves to that. We will take up the different classes 

 of fruit in order. 



THE APPLE 



Everyone who has observed the wild or native 

 apples which grow in New England pastures must 

 frequently have noticed certain dwarf and slow-grow- 

 ing specimens. It it not difficult to find such which 

 do not reach a height of five feet in ten years of 

 unobstructed growth. If the cions of ordinary varie- 

 ties of apples like Greening and Winesap should be 

 grafted upon these stocks, the result would be a dwarf 

 Greening or Winesap. If these dwarf wild apples 

 could be produced with certainty and at a low price, 

 they would furnish a source of supply for dwarf apple 

 stocks. 



