XIII 

 PERSONALIA 



MANY persons have a strong prejudice in favor of 

 the concrete. On general principles they object to 

 generalities. They choose rather the specific case. 

 Personal experience, they say, means more to them 

 than theory, even though the theory be the sublimation 

 of all experience. For the benefit of such people I 

 am going to set down an account of some of my own 

 attempts at growing dwarf fruit trees, and to that I 

 will add brief opinions and experiences of some friends 

 of mine. 



The first dwarf fruit tree that I ever saw, so far as 

 I remember, was in the grounds of the Kansas State 

 Agricultural College when I was a student there. This 

 tree was an apple, on Paradise stock, and at two years 

 after planting it bore six or eight very fine Yellow 

 Transparent apples. It was one of several dwarf 

 apples planted by Professor E. A. Popenoe, but the 

 other trees did not much attract my attention. This 

 particular specimen had a straight, clean trunk of about 

 thirty inches, after the absurd style of heading dwarf 

 apples practised in most American nurseries. But 

 the crown was full and symmetrical, and the fruit was 

 incomparable. That particular tree has always been 

 a sort of ideal and inspiration to me. 



Later, when I planted an orchard in Oklahoma, I 

 put in some dwarf trees, particularly pears, but I did 



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