184 PLANT PROPAGATION 



dividuality of orchard trees and the necessity of propagating from 

 individuals having the best characters. The speaker does not be- 

 lieve in "pedigreed trees", finding but little in either theory or fact 

 to substantiate the claim of those who believe they can improve 

 varieties by bud selection. The multitude of trees in any variety, 

 all from one seed, it seems paradoxical to say, are morphologically 

 one individual. A plant variety propagated by buds is essentially 

 complete in its heredity. How, then, can the difference between 

 individual plants in every orchard be explained? 



Ample explanation is found in "nurture" without invoking a 

 change in "nature." Soil, sunlight, moisture, insects, disease and, 

 more than any of these, the stock give every individual plant an 



FIG. 156 HAND METHOD OF PLANTING NURSERY STOCK 

 Two men work to better advantage than one alone. 



environment of its own from which come characters which appear 

 and disappear with the individual. Thus, it is believed, we can 

 bend a variety by means of a stock, but not that we can permanently 

 mold it into any new form given it by a stock. Let go the force, 

 whatever it may be, which bends the variety and it snaps back into 

 its same old self. 



233. Necessity for stock breeding. In the coming refinement of 

 fruit growing we must breed stocks as we now do varieties they 

 support. The stocks of all tree fruits are supposed to be seedlings 

 of cultivated varieties. Yet only a cursory investigation at home 

 or abroad shows that seed from cider presses and stone fruit pits 

 from canneries are commonly used in growing nursery stocks. 

 Under present methods it is mere chance as to whether one gets 

 a tree on a good, or a bad plant on any stock. Would it not be 

 a safe stroke of business for a nurseryman to select his stocks and 

 through his catalogue educate fruit growers as to the greater 

 value of trees on good stocks? 



