240 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



from my own trees I would simply be transmitting the 

 weaknesses I already had. I sent to Tompkins County, 

 where the King thrives at its best, and had scions selected 

 from the best trees, free from disease, trees that gave the 

 best quality of fruit, and that bore annually instead of once 

 in two or three years. I received scions from trees of this 

 character, and transferred them to my Northern Spy stock. 



Now, what is the process? First purchase good, strong, 

 thrifty, two-year-old Spy trees, planting these, and then 

 letting them stand one year. After they have stood one 

 year, then scions were set in a portion of the tree first. The 

 King scions were set in the Northern Spy stock. Now, the 

 question is, why not top Avork the whole tree at one time? 

 Some have done that, and made a mistake; if you cut off 

 too much foliage the opportunity for the tree to draw plant 

 food the scions require is impaired. You must leave some 

 foliage to the tree to supply food, and the next year finish 

 grafting. 



At the present time I have taken an entirely different 

 course, using buds instead of scions, and thus saving 

 time. In July or August, as soon as the bark works prop- 

 erly, we take the buds, inserting them in the place of 

 the scions. The practice among nursery men very largely 

 has been in propagation to take the buds at the nursery 

 from young trees. The principle is not a correct one, be- 

 cause on all the young growing trees the buds that are there 

 are buds that are producing growth of the tree. You have 

 no fruitfulncss in the buds. I am reversing that practice, 

 and taking the buds from trees that have maturity, that are 

 producing fruit ; and the buds taken from such trees are in- 

 serted, and it reduces the time of getting an orchard into 

 bearing at least one-half. Upon the King trees I have had 

 apples coming right along four years from the time the 

 scions were set. Now, in the budding process I am having 

 the fruit at three years, and here [showing] are apples taken 

 from buds set only two 3^ ears. This new method eliminates 

 this long period of time which we usually have had to wait 

 for the production of the fruit in planting apple orchards ; 

 so the method of propagation coming from the selection of 



