IO THE NEW HORTICULTURE. 



trees 1 did sell, being green at the business I found a world of 

 trouble to make the clumsy, flat-rooted ones from the young 

 trees agree with one another and lie comfortably in the same 

 bundle. Having been planted with quite long ones, they were 

 entirely lateral-rooted when dug. But the trees grown from 

 cuttings, while they gave us a world of trouble to get out 

 with the regulation amount and length of root, when we 

 came to pack, were regular daisies roots all long, deep and 

 straight, and as easy to pack as sardines in a box. The 

 third year I had extraordinary luck, and grew about seven 

 thousand trees from cuttings. Having again sold only about 

 two thousand, I found quite a job on my hands late in spring, 

 as we had waited, hoping some purchaser would come along. 

 But he did not, so we had to tackle the transplanting job 

 again, and at the same time look forward to next year's pack- 

 ing of those roots, if sales turned out good. I remember well 

 standing before the row where the trees were all nicely heeled 

 in, with the buds ready to leaf out, and my only help, Frank, 

 a colored boy, at my side, who had just as little fancy as I for 

 the job. After holding a council of war for awhile as to the 

 best and easiest way to get all those roots under ground, and 

 Frank had actually gone down once with the plow and was 

 coming back on the furrow, throwing the dirt out, the idea 

 occurred all at once in the form of a self question. Some- 

 thing seemed to say : " If those trees grew so well with no 

 root at all, what's the matter with cutting them all off, and 

 letting them try it over again ? " No sooner thought than 

 settled. Frank was within fifty feet of me coming back, and 

 when he got there I astonished him by saying: "Now go 

 back and throw the furrow together again," and told him of 

 my idea. Without a moment's hesitation that colored boy, 

 Frank Bell, caught on to the whole thing, saying, "Good," 

 and started back on the row. And yet I have been writing 

 and urging fruit-growers for the last eight years just to 

 try the method, even on a single tree; but so thoroughly 

 had the long-root idea incorporated itself into the mental 

 machinery of most of them, that until the last year or tw r o it 

 has been in vain. I laid the whole subject in a most exhaust- 



