78 



MASS. EXPERIMENT STATION BULLETIN 190. 



These figures show no very consistent results. Evidently so far as the 

 development of nursery trees is concerned, a small contact of the cambium 

 layers is as good as a perfect fit. Nevertheless, it is quite possible that 

 more extensive tests might reveal significant results. 



In several cases grafts have been made in April and set immediately 

 in the nursery row. Such lots have been somewhat slow in starting, but 

 have given fully as good stands as those that had been stored for two 

 months or more. Probably due in part, at least, to the slow start, they 

 have made somewhat smaller trees at the end of one or two seasons' 

 growi^h. 



In some cases, storage has been in boxes packed in moss or other mois- 

 ture-holding material. Sometimes this has seemed to be injurious, perhaps 

 through the displacement of oxygen by carbon dioxide, and the grafts 

 have failed to give a good stand, though starting well for the first week 

 or ten days. 



The planting has been done with a double or triple dibber made out 

 of gas pipe or steel tubing. These tools enable one to plant the graft 

 deep in the ground with only one or two buds showing. The earth has 

 been pressed close to the graft by thrusting down a straight spade close 

 to the graft, and tramping solidly with the feet. 



In all cases the trees have been allowed to grow for two seasons. They 

 make a small growth the first season, probably largely because of the 

 small size of the nurse root. In most cases they have been cut back to 

 the ground at the beginning of the second season, after which they make 

 fairly strong one-year whips. Many of the trees have been budded the 

 first summer, so that if they rooted from the scion we would have at the 

 end of the second season the desired variety established on the root system 

 of a named variety; for example, a Baldwin top on a Ben Davis root 

 system. This method saves time, but owing to uncertainty of rooting 

 from the scion it is not very satisfactory. When the trees are dug a 

 record is made of those rooting and not rooting from the scion, and from 

 the former the seedling root is cut. The point of union is always clearly 



