No. 4.] FRUIT GROWING. 191 



out right on the ground, left standing in the dirt, where all 

 the vitality is taken out of those trees, and so there is a dis- 

 advantage of buying trees of the canvassers. Now, I say, 

 buy direct from some reliable nurseryman in whom you have 

 confidence, insist upon spring trees, and you will save ninety- 

 nine out of every one hundred trees you buy. On the other 

 hand, speaking from experience, 75 per cent of the trees 

 sold the other way are not worth a cent in three years' time. 



Mr. Millard. The point that I desired to draw out was 

 this : whether home-grown trees or foreign-grown trees 

 which would be in a way congenial to our soil here might 

 be the best for us to use. 



Mr. DRArER. I think it makes but very little difference. 

 If you take a tree growing in Genesee Yalley in New York 

 State, where the roots strike down two feet, and get just two 

 or three roots down deep in the soil, they can make an im- 

 mense growth, three feet, perhaps five feet the first year and 

 three the second, according to the special growth of the tree 

 I would want ; l)ut tens of thousands of these trees are 

 grown hy farmers in New York State on high land. If you 

 take a tree growing on good ordinary soil and give it a good 

 root and a good fair growth of body, a good growth of wood, 

 you will have as good a tree from New York State as from 

 New England, but do not take the trees grown in rich bottom 

 land, where they get a three-year-old tree in one year. 



Question. Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask Mr. Wood, 

 considering the probability that a good many peo})le never 

 will buy trees at all, even of Mr. Draper, whether it would 

 not be advisable for our young people to raise them in their 

 own gardens or on the farms, where our boys and girls can 

 raise hundreds of apple trees and delight in their employ- 

 ment. They can take them up when they jilease. I mean 

 they can take them up when they are ready, and put them 

 out in the orchard, and thus prevent exposing them very 

 much. I do not want to dispute anything Mr. Draper has 

 said, but, after all, if these trees were home-grown and we 

 should put them out we should have orchards, and nursery- 

 men might sell more than they sell now. 



Mr. Wood. Children can be induced to go into no bet- 

 ter employment than growing seedlings, and they can be 



