BURBANK IN THE ORCHARD 



grafted on trees of kindred species. You cannot 

 graft a stone fruit, for example, on a seed fruit, 

 or vice versa. But a cultivated apple may thrive 

 when grafted on roots of the wild crab apple. 

 Pear scions do well on wild or inferior varieties 

 of pears. Cultivated varieties of plums may be 

 grafted on hardy and vigorous wild plums. 

 Apricot scions thrive on seedling plum or peach 

 stock. 



One of Mr. Burbank's striking feats in his early 

 experience in California, while he was carrying on 

 the business of a nurseryman, was to establish an 

 orchard of twenty thousand prunes in a single 

 season by raising almonds from seed (sprouting 

 them between layers of gunnysack covered with 

 moist sand), and grafting prune scions on them 

 as soon as they were large enough. 



Mr. Burbank habitually tests scores or even 

 hundreds of new varieties on a single tree. On 

 his Gold Ridge Farm at Sebastopol there are 

 single acres on which ripen several thousand dis- 

 tinct varieties of hybrid seedling plums that, if 

 tested each on a separate tree, would require, it 

 is estimated, something like seven hundred acres 

 of land. 



It is obvious, then, that if you have on your 

 grounds an apple tree or two, a plum, a pear, 

 and a cherry, even if they are all of inferior varie- 

 ties, you may quickly establish colonies of all the 

 common orchard fruits, in the choicest varieties, 

 by grafting or budding with scions that may be 

 secured from any good nursery. 



[69] 



