78 DA VET'S PRIMER 



" Could we not get trees that are not ' forked? ' 

 Splendid question, Albert. Yes, certainly; and 

 we want, at least, eight million of the children of the 

 United States (that is only one out of ten of our popu- 

 lation ; great country, is it not!) to commence raising 

 trees. 



Along with the growth of other industries, great 

 "nurseries" have been established, where they start 

 the seeds, and "bud" and "graft" things that we 

 want you to do as you grow older and then, of 

 course, the next thing was to sell their "stock," so 

 they would have catalogs printed, and in this way 

 have done great good in giving us new and valuable 

 fruits, flowers, shrubs and trees ; but now we have a 

 great many " nurseries," and they raise more " stock " 

 than the people need, so that it has come about that 

 there are a class of men ( ?) running over the country 

 called " Agents." While it is true that now and then 

 there is an honest man among them ; yet, to their 

 regret, some of your fathers and mothers know that all 

 of them are not honest. I was in a nursery one day 

 and a foreman told me that one of these "Agents" 

 had been there and bought thirteen cheap roses of 

 ONE kind, then labelled them as thirteen different 

 kinds of the very best f Another agent, he said, rilled 

 an order for high-classed peonies (" pinies," some call 

 them) with rhubarb roots! Well I'll not tell you all 

 their "tricks" that I know, but ask you to start to 

 raising many of your own trees. You can get acorns ; 



