52 THE NURSERY 



from the bunches, and placed upon the benches, where 

 each man takes out his particular grade. Several will 

 take out No. 1 straight, and pile what are left on another 

 bench. Here the next grade, No. 1 branched, are separated, 

 and so on, passing from bench to bench until all the dif- 

 ferent grades have been taken out. Each man continues 

 on the same grade during the grading season. As soon as 

 graded the seedlings are tied in bunches and go through a 

 trap door to the storage cellars, where the packing and ship- 

 ping is done. 



Grades of Seedlings. " An ideal No. 1 straight (Fig. 21) 

 apple seedling is one that is fourteen to sixteen inches long, is 

 at least three-sixteenths of an inch in diameter at the collar 

 and three-sixteenths of an inch in diameter seven inches 

 below the collar, and continued straight between the two 

 points. An ideal No. 2 seedling (Fig. 22) is one that is twelve 

 inches long, is at least two-sixteenths of an inch in diameter 

 at the collar and is two-sixteenths of an inch in diameter 

 seven inches below the collar and continues straight be- 

 tween these two points. An ideal No. 1 branched seedling 

 (Fig. 23) is one that is at least three-sixteenths of an inch 

 in diameter at the collar and has three or more roots, well 

 distributed, not exceeding three and one-half inches below 

 the collar. A No. 3 seedling is one that is two-sixteenths of 

 an inch in diameter at the collar but fails to carry its diam- 

 eter of two-sixteenths far enough down to grade No. 2; 

 it is sometimes branched. 



" A peculiar thing about the growing of apple seedlings 

 is the fact that they cannot be grown with profit in small 

 quantities. If a firm uses only 100,000 to 300,000 in a 



