122 THE NEW HORTICULTURE. 



while a Burbank will fruit ten thousand trees or more and 

 find not one worth preserving. But somehow I have always 

 had faith that Nature would some day take me into her con- 

 fidence and impart this secret, as she has the other great 

 truths of the New Horticulture. 



Now I believe she has rewarded my patience, and only 

 a few days ago, and this is how it happened. A gentle- 

 man from the adjoining county of McCullough called to see 

 my sod orchard, and, noticing seven kinds of apricots grow- 

 ing on the same tree, began to tell me about a wonderful 

 apricot near the town of Brady, where he lived, of which the 

 history is as follows : Seventeen years ago a neighbor no- 

 ticed a little seedling with only three leaves, standing on the 

 bare ground near the front door, and, thinking it was some 

 kind of a fruit tree and would be tramped to death, he picked 

 up a small stick, pushed it down carefully under the little 

 waif and carried it, dirt and all, around to the side of the 

 house, setting it again in the hard, unbroken virgin soil. 

 The baby tree, appreciating the kindness, grew off rapidly ; 

 and now, with not a single root ever cut, no fertilizing, prun- 

 ing or thinning of the fruit, that tree has a spread of thirty- 

 five feet, is thirty feet high, practically a forest tree, bears 

 more or less every year and generally full, as much as fifteen 

 bushels having been taken from it one year. The fruit is 

 large and beautiful, averaging six inches in circumference 

 and many reaching eight inches, while the quality is excel- 

 lent. This was his description after knowing the tree for 

 years, and he further told me that cuttings had been given to 

 Mr. Ramsey, of Austin, and other nurserymen for propaga- 

 tion under the name of the Sheridan apricot. Of course, I 

 listened to all this with intense interest, and when he got 

 through, by some sort of mental suggestion or what not, I 

 seemed to hear the words, " That's the way she does it," 

 and the secret of Nature's skill flashed upon my mind in an 

 instant. Now it may be all a fallacy, but the more I think of 

 it, the more certain it appears that the hidden puzzle of how 

 Nature grows her fine fruits has been solved. 



Of course, the scientific hybridizer will pooh-pooh, for 



