44 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



out. They are dead, or nearly so, before they are trans- 

 planted. There may be a feeble growth, and the tree may 

 linger along for a few years, and then die. The trunk may 

 throw out these sprouts to which reference has been made, 

 and if they are allowed to grow, they may produce the same 

 fruit that was grafted, because the sprout will be more likely 

 to start above the point where the graft was inserted than 

 below it. t 



Dr. Fisher of Fitchburg. I think the gentleman last up 

 has touched upon a point which is the real explanation of the 

 difficulty. I have had considerable experience in setting out 

 home-grown trees and foreign trees, — trees from Western New 

 York, — and I have found somewhat the same difficulties that 

 one gentleman has spoken of. It seems to me that the trouble 

 is not in the trees, or where they grow, but it is in the way 

 the trees are treated when taken up, and the management 

 afterwards. In the first place, we buy trees one, two, and 

 three years from the bud. To begin with, you cannot take 

 up an old tree with the same success that you can a young 

 one. The general rule with nurserymen is to cut the roots a 

 certain distance from the trunk, no matter whether the tree 

 is young or old. You get about the same length of roots in 

 an old tree that you get in a young one, but there is a vast 

 difference in the character of the roots. In a yearling or two- 

 year old tree, you arc likely to get the whole system of roots, 

 but if you get a three or four year old tree, the roots are cut 

 oil* very short near the stem, and those trees dry up very 

 easily. I think if we should go and see the trees lying around 

 the nurseries, in sunny days, we should be likely to see where 

 some of the trouble comes from. Then they are on the way 

 from a week to ten days; then they are exposed, more or 

 less, to sunshine, when we set them out, unless we are careful, 

 and know what we arc about ; and then, worst of all, when 

 they are set out, the whole of the top is left on. If that is 

 not enough to kill a tree, it is because a tree has as many 

 lives as a cat. I think the advice of the gentleman who read 

 the essay was, to cut off a third of the top of a tree when 

 you -set it out. My advice is, buy young trees, and cut off 

 seven-eighths of the top. If a tree has been out of the ground 

 so long that the top is dry, I have no hesitation in cutting off 



