214 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



these would represent an orchard or orchard areas total- 

 ing over 40.000 acres in extent. An orchard a mile square 

 is a large orchard even to-day, and this 40,000 acres 

 would represent 62 such square-mile orchards which would 

 have root systems developed in American soil from the 

 tiny rootlets which were produced first in the soil of some 

 foreign country, be it France or England or Japan. 



The question then is open for discussion as to what 

 advantages and as to whether there are any disadvan- 

 tages in having such a proportion of our orchards which 



We know that there are root diseases, and serious ones, 

 and there is no question that they may be carried by seed- 

 lings, but whether these are of such a nature as to make 

 it advisable to shut them out of the commerce of the 

 country is a question for the experts to decide and not 

 one to be settled by political action. 



The nursery firms of the country can grow apple and 

 pear and quince and plum seedlings, and many are now 

 growing such stock, but they could not grow the quanti- 

 ties required to supply the demand in the first year after 



^M 



CHINESE WILD PEACH PLANTING 



Portion of a nursery planting of the Chinese wild peach, Amygdalus davidiana, at the United States Plant Introduction Field Station, Chico, California. This 

 peach has proven very valuable as a stock for dry lands and regions too cold for the cultivated peach. 



we set out every year upon a root system taken bodily 

 from a foreign soil and perhaps carrying the diseases of 

 that country with them. Certainly it must be admitted 

 that this whole question of the proper stock for our orchard 

 trees is one the importance of which can hardly be over- 

 estimated. The fact that the plants which were imported 

 cost us only $41,000 or a dollar an acre and is a small 

 import item should not mislead us, for the potential value 

 of these trees will run easily into the millions. 



On the other hand, it would be eminently unfair to 

 assume that because we do not know that these little 

 apple seedlings from the old world or from Japan arc as 

 clean and free from disease as any which we can produce 

 in America, they represent undesirable immigrants and 

 should be excluded from the country. Or that the dis- 

 eases which they have are ones which will prove as serious 

 or even more so in this country than they have in their 

 native land, or that they will infect <^ur soils and through 

 this infect our orchards with diseases which they would 

 get in no other way. 



It is probably true that the principal reason why these 

 seedlings are imported is because they are cheap cheaper 

 than it would be possible to produce them in this country. 

 The question is one for a thorough and exhaustive investi- 

 gation and the facts discovered will point the way to an 

 intelligent handling of the question of their importation. 



the foreign supply is cut off, supposing it should be, be- 

 cause they would have difficulty in getting the seeds and 

 in establishing them in seed beds, and it would take two 

 years or more for them to adjust themselves to the changed 

 conditions. 



When we turn to the imports of fruit and ornamental 

 trees, evergreen shrubs, vines and all trees and vines 

 known as nursery stock of which we imported $805,305 

 worth in 1915, the conditions are different. Millions of 

 this class of plants are already being grown in this coun- 

 try by our more progressive nursery firms. 



There can be no question that the nurserymen of this 

 country, at least the best of them and there are no 

 keener plant students in agriculture than are these Amer- 

 ican nurserymen question the advisability of the large 

 importations of so-called ornamental evergreens and other 

 dooryard shrubs which are made from Europe largely 

 through the department stores where they are used for 

 advertising purposes. The department stores make no 

 pretence to a knowledge of the quality of this class of 

 material. It is cheap and they can almost afford to give 

 it away. But often the purchaser has never before bought 

 a plant for his dooryard. He looks upon a plant as a 

 plant and puts it in carefully as carefully as he knows 

 how to and it dies and he is discouraged and when the 

 legitimate nurseryman tries to sell him a real plant that 



