STARTING THE ORCHARD 21 



In some quarters there is a well-founded prejudice 

 I hardly dare to call it more in favor of tree- 

 breeding by the selection of scions from bearing trees 

 of special individual excellence. It is easy to observe 

 that in a block of apple trees of one variety, say, Mc- 

 Intosh or Greening or Winesap, there are individual 

 trees which bear more and better fruit than their 

 neighbors. In so far as this is not due to the influence 

 of the stock, but to the individuality of the tree itself, 

 it can presumably be reproduced by grafting. From 

 such trees accordingly do the modern apple growers 

 of the advanced school prefer to select their scions. 

 The -present writer warmly shares the prejudice in 

 favor of this practice, but admits that it rests on a 

 plausible theory rather than on an established prin- 

 ciple. 



When the nursery stock is grown on the place the 

 strongest and best trees may be selected, a large 

 number of inferior specimens being discarded. One 

 is apt to get, therefore, a generally higher grade of 

 stock, providing he is willing to stand a certain 

 amount of loss in the nursery, when he plants from 

 his own nursery rows. 



Nevertheless in the great majority of cases it is 

 more practicable to secure trees from some nursery- 

 man than it is to grow them at home. This is em- 

 phatically true if the number to be planted is com- 

 paratively small, and if the planter is not an expert 

 propagator. It is the nurseryman's business to propa- 

 gate trees, and he can do it better and more cheaply 

 than the unpracticed fruit grower. The suspicion usu- 

 ally attached to nursery-grown trees is almost always 

 unfounded. The unsophisticated farmer has been ha- 

 bitually gulled by the fruit tree agents from the earliest 



