A REVIEW. 89 



interest at the North, that a few weeks ago Mr. E. Van 

 Alstyne, a prominent fruit-grower and writer, visited it and 

 made a highly favorable report in The Rural New Yorker of 

 January 15, concluding with the following language: "The 

 annual growth of new wood was all that one could wish, and 

 it is good, solid wood, too. The trees are strong and healthy 

 and will compare favorably with the majority of trees of the 

 same age anywhere. I see no reason why in the next eight 

 or ten years this orchard should not return an annual net 

 income that will equal several times the cost of land and 

 trees." In the same issue the editor remarks : " Those were 

 June-bred trees, planted in crowbar holes and cut back so 

 that about one foot of stem was left above ground. The 

 roots were pruned so that not even a stub of a side root was 

 left. We punched a hole with a crowbar right in a brush- 

 grown field where no plowing had been done for at least thirty 

 years. The little trees were put down into the holes and water 

 and sand poured in, then packed down hard around the root 

 with a stick. These trees did not receive the attention they 

 should have had, and they grew slowly at first. I have dug 

 up quite a number of them to see what they were doing, and 

 in every case their first effort seems to be a series of tap-roots 

 which dig straight down into the ground. I have traced 

 them until I feel sure they reached nearly or quite to the 

 water level. Later, after the tap-roots are well fixed, the 

 small feeding-roots come out from below the crown of the 

 tree, when growth proceeds rapidly." 



In a former issue of the journal the editor had this to say 

 about cultivation : "I have been criticised more or less for 

 trying what is called the Stringfellow method of handling 

 trees, that is, close root-pruning, planting in small holes, 

 mulching around the trees and mowing the grass instead of 

 cultivation. Many prominent men warned me in the begin- 

 ning against these methods, but if I were now to publish 

 their letters it would make those gentlemen very weary. In 

 view of the way my own trees have acted, I am unable to 

 understand just why the scientific men make such fun of 

 these methods. The fact is, those gentlemen will soon not 



