CHAPTER III. 



How I Discovered Close Root -Pruning. 



AS this principle of horticulture is absolutely the most 

 important, without a single exception, in the whole 

 science, and the foundation of all permanent success, 

 it is most astonishing that men have stumbled over it almost 

 daily from the beginning, and never realized its value. The 

 ordinary root-graft has been the most common form of prop- 

 agation for most fruit trees for time out of mind, and every 

 nurseryman knows what superior trees can be thus grown in 

 a single season. And yet it has never occurred to any one to 

 say : If a small piece of root will make such a fine tree, why 

 will not the same principle apply the second or any other 

 year afterward ? Just how the value of this method did first 

 present itself to me is as follows : Nobody here having any 

 faith in the success of my venture of pear planting, I found 

 it impossible at first to sell but few of the trees I had grown 

 from cuttings, but having hopes that the astonishing vigor 

 and thrift of my orchard would start a demand, I dug the 

 young trees for several years, and transplanted to keep them 

 from getting too large, as they surely would, judging from the 

 way the orchard was doing. So we opened wide furrows and, 

 spreading out the pear tree roots evenly, according to the 

 universal directions, covered them nicely and firmed the 

 ground well. Being an old market-gardener, though a new 

 nurseryman, and a believer in manure, as already shown, I 

 gave the rows of young trees a good dressing of cotton-seed 

 meal, and with fair cultivation, at the end of the year I had 

 no cause for complaint, as they all did well. But even that 

 early I had caught on to the fact that, for some unexplained 

 reason, the cuttings planted at the same time as the rooted 

 trees always averaged much better. Moreover, another great 

 point in their favor was, that when we came to pack the few 



(75) 



