90 MASSACHUSETT,^ HORTICULTr'RAL SOCIETY. 



Agaiu, plants which have once fruited heavily should not lie 

 used for propagatiou, either for home beds or for market, as they 

 have, of course, decreased vitality, and the use of such plants 

 would ensure speed}' degeneracy. 



AVhen some one point in an otherwise valuable variety is lack- 

 ing, as for instance in the Jewell a disposition to throw runners 

 freely, this characteristic may be greath' changed l)y marking 

 those plants which are all right in this respect, and using only 

 their progeny for stock plants. Some of our best fruit growers, 

 among whom is T. T. Lyon, the respected President of the Michi- 

 gan Horticultural Society, however, do not regard this trait as 

 wholly objectionable, inasmuch as the tendency of a plant to 

 concentrate Nature's powers on itself, rather than in profuse 

 multiplication, lies right in the line of extreme fruitfulness. The 

 Crescent and Haviland make runners too freely. But where slow 

 propagatiou is manifestly a fault, it can be remedied by choosing 

 plants of good vigor, struck as late as September or Octolter, 

 rather than heavier plants struck in July, which are crowded with 

 fruit germs and hence have the preponderant tendency toward 

 heav}' fruitage rather than propagatiou. A plant that has the 

 germs of two hundred berries is less fit for propagation than one 

 that has fewer germs. I formerlj' made a mistake in sending out 

 large plants, but I did it ignorantly. So where there is any lack 

 in any habit of an otherwise valuable variety, it can in time be 

 greatly modified by the judicious selection of plants for the 

 stock-bed. To the lack of such care in the management of 

 varieties, and to injudicious propagatiou, is to be charged the 

 running out of varieties once highly esteemed. If we select weak 

 runners indiscriminate!}' for propagation we shall run down the 

 character of the variety. The purchasing public are largely 

 responsible for this, inasmuch as they will buy the most carelessly 

 grown plants, at ruinoush' low rates, when at double the price 

 they would secure carefully grown plants of high value. The 

 same thing is true, to quite as great an extent, in regard to the 

 propagation and sale of fruit-bearing nursery trees, which 

 accounts for the very uneven and miserable orchards we see all ■ 

 about the countrj'. "We should prefer for trees the best seedlings 

 from the best developed seeds before the feeble stocks from cider 

 pomace, and they should be grafted at the collar, and the vicious 

 practice of cutting up roots should be avoided. 



