PROCEEDINQS OF THE FARMERS* CLUB. 307 



any one was severed, its life would be continued by the support of those 

 at each side. 



Mr. Geo. Bartlett i-emarked that he had spent many of his youthful days 

 in Massachusetts, under the shade of two trees, white oak and black oak, 

 joined tog-ether by natural grafting. He had also seen two pines joined 

 together in the same way. Perhaps natural grafting is more common in 

 beech trees than in any other kind. 



Mr. John P. Veeder said that he had seen a natural graft of an aspen 

 tree, where a limb formed an arch of about two and a half feet, and then 

 joined the body again. He said that upon his place there was a pine tree 

 which appears as though growing directly out of the body of an oak. The 

 two evidently had started together, and the oak growing faster than the 

 other, had completely enveloped the roots of the pine. 



Mr. Solon Robinson. — The great value of this letter and our discussion 

 upon it, is what is suggested bj' Mr. Whitford, that we might make use of 

 the knowledge obtained from this natural grafting, to obtain living gate 

 posts, surmounted by an arch of growing limbs. 



Cultivation of Flowers — How to Produce Double Blossoms. 



Mr. Robinson read the following extract of a letter from a lady of Bel- 

 fast, N. Y. : 



"I desire to know the mode of culture necessary to raise seed which 

 shall produce large, double ilowers of asters, balsams, stocks, &c. I have 

 cultivated them many years, but my finest blooms mature but little seed, 

 and that results the next year in inferior flowers, so that T am obliged to 

 depend entirely upon seed furnished at seed stores and often find that un- 

 trustworthy.*' 



Mr. R. G. Pardee said : It gives me pleasure to answer such sensible 

 inquiries. The remedy is easy and complete. The best seed in the world 

 will always produce some single blossoms, and these give off hybridizing 

 pollen, more readily than the most double kind, and this fertilizing nearly 

 all the blossoms in the vicinity, will cause them to produce seed that will 

 grow none but single blossoms another year. To prevent this, watch the 

 opening blooms carefully, and pull up every plant, without exception, that 

 shows only single flowers. Continue this process every year. To enable 

 your double blooms to produce seed, pull out some of the pistils, so that 

 the pollen can find room to enter to produce fertility. Some double flowers 

 are so thickly studded with pistils that the pollen falls only upon the ex- 

 tremities, and is blown off, consequently very few seeds are produced. 

 Seedsmen are in the habit of making use of artificial means to obtain 

 seeds from their best flowers, and then they get very few, and this is one 

 reason why the price of such seeds is always so high. Some persons are 

 in the habit of transplanting balsam three or four times during the season, 

 taimming off the roots, and setting the plant each time in a very rich spot. 

 This greatly improves the beauty of the bloom. Asters will not bear this 

 treatment. Now, if the lady will be sure to get good seed, and pursue the 

 course recommended, eradicating every single blossom, without fail, she 

 will be able to grow double flowers.' 



