44 



Garden and Forest. 



[January 22, 1890. 



Cultural Department. 



Grafting. 



SOME time ago the London correspondent of Garden and 

 Forest spoke of the controversy about grafting carried 

 on in The Garden and expressed the hope that some American 

 comment would be made on the subject,, especially because 

 grafting must have been tested here on a gigantic scale. I had 

 already procured some figures from Mr. C. A. Green, secre- 

 tary of the American Nurserymen's Association, which I 

 quote : "We have record of five thousand nurseries in the 

 United States, and I estimate that there are five thousand not 

 recorded. Ten thousand nurseries, many of them very small, 

 I estimate, average ten thousand trees yearly, giving one 

 hundred millions of trees propagated annually. For the past 

 fifty years, perhaps twenty millions annually would be within 

 limits, giving a total of a thousand millions in fifty years." 

 These trees have been scattered all over the United States, an 

 area three thousand miles in diameter. Sixty millions of peo- 

 ple in America, and perhaps some thousands in Europe, eat 

 annually of their fruit. They were all grafted trees, many of 

 them double-grafted, and so satisfactory has been the process 

 that American nurserymen will continue to graft and Ameri- 

 can fruit-growers persist in planting them, and yet these trees 

 are what some able writers in the English press stigmatize as 

 " rubbish ;" one eminent writer going so far as to assert that 

 "grafting is always a make-shift and often a fraud." 



Now I do not care to show how impracticable are the 

 notions of some of these writers who advise a " return to 

 the old plan of hillock layering " instead of this "fraudulent " 

 practice of grafting. I merely wish to state that universal ex- 

 perience has proved that this wholesale condemnation of 

 grafting is baseless. The nurseryman who tries to unite a 

 graft with an unsuitable stock will not succeed, simply because 

 he does not know his business, but when an appropriate 

 stock is chosen for a graft, and both are properly prepared, there 

 is no evidence to show that the tree will not be as long lived 

 and as healthy as a seedling on its own roots. 



Mr. Temple, of Cambridge, who was in England while the 

 controversy was at its highest, stated that the sole reason 

 for the use of grafting has been its cheapness. Now if trees 

 can be propagated equally well and more cheaply by grafting 

 than in any other way, that would be an ample justification 

 for the practice. But the fact is that grafting serves many 

 other useful purposes. No doubt the writer of the above is 

 aware that American vines are now largely grown and sold in 

 Europe (see Garden and Forest, vol. 2, page, 555) as stock 

 upon which the more delicate old-world varieties of grapes 

 are grafted, and that in many regions vine-culture has been 

 saved by this process because the phylloxera does not injure 

 the strong roots of the American vines. It is well known, too, 

 that many ornamental trees do better when grafted than they 

 do on their own stock. Magnolia glanca is greatly improved 

 by grafting it on M. acuminata, awl no one would be so foolish 

 as to layer M. parviflora or any other of the new sorts. Mr. 

 Burbidge asserts that he would as soon think of grafting a 

 cabbage as a coniferous tree, and yet he can find thousands 

 of grafted conifers in England which have grown with great 

 vigor and beauty for forty years. In this country seedling 

 Norway Spruces are old and brown and dishevelled in thirty 

 years, while the Oriental Spruce, grafted on this same Norway 

 stock, is in full vigor and beauty. 



Mr. Temple states that he has seen acres of grafted Chinese 

 Magnolias with all their buds killed in a hard winter. 1 have 

 never seen acres of living or dead Magnolias here, but I have 

 seen enough to know that Magnolias properly grafted, planted 

 and cared, for are as sure to grow for twenty years as are 

 Apple trees or Pear trees. 



The whole gist of the matter seems to lie in the question 

 whether a perfect union can be formed between a graft and 

 the stock. This is a question in physiological botany which I 

 am not capable of answering scientifically ; that is, I have 

 never made, nor am I able to make, the proper microscopic 

 and other investigation which is needed to demonstrate that 

 the union is absolutely perfect; but as a matter of practice I 

 think that no one who has had years of experience will hesi- 

 tate to say that when trees are properly grafted they show 

 no less vigor than seedling trees and are quite as likely to be 

 long-lived. Of course if one selects for stock and cion 

 plants which are not closely related, or pays no proper attention 

 to the condition of both when the grafting is done, or per- 

 forms it in a clumsy way, failure will follow. This only proves, 

 however, the lack of skill and intelligence in the operator. If 

 we grant that a union which is practically perfect can be made, 



then it seems to me plain that there may be many cases in 

 which grafting would add to the vigor and longevity of a 

 plant, and certainly we may be able to extend the range of 

 certain varieties of fruit and ornamental trees if we can use 

 the roots of one tree which are adapted to a certain kind of 

 soil and gralt upon it the top of another whose roots would 

 not thrive in that soil. The grafting of European Grape-vines 

 on American stock is a case in point. Our experience is that 

 roots of Rhododendron Ponticum are never killed by heat or 

 by cold here, and, therefore, they make an admirable stock, 

 both for the varieties R. Cawtawbiense and the Ghent Azaleas 

 in places where neither of these plants will thrive on their own 

 roots. The best gardeners in England graft the Peach on 

 Plum-stock where fruit is to be grown under glass. 



But there is no need of multiplying instances to defend the 

 practice of grafting as an indispensable one in many cases. I 

 have said this much in the hope that other cultivators may 

 give their thoughts and experience, so that some new ideas 

 may be brought forth and suggestions made as to the direc- 

 tions in which the practice may be hopefully extended or in 

 which it may be properly curtailed. 

 Flushing, L. I. S. B. Parsons. 



The Rose-beetle. 



A PUZZLING problem to the horticulturists of southern, 

 ■**■ New Jersey is, " What may be done with the rose-bug ? " 

 and the question may become of serious interest generally. 

 This insect, Macrodactylus siibspinosus, threatens to occupy 

 as prominent a place in our agriculture as does the potato- 

 beetle. It is even more formidable. We know how to deal 

 with the potato-bug, but ingenuity is thus far baffled in devis- 

 ing means of contending against the rose-bug. For some 

 years my own experiences with it have cost a thousand dol- 

 lars a year, and I am as helpless against this pest as when I 

 began trying to defend my plants from its ravages. 



In this region, colonies of rose-bugs have existed in various- 

 localities for several years. I first saw a few of them in the 

 corner of my vineyard in 1886. The next year I found there 

 many more of them occupying an extended space. In 1888- 

 they reappeared in multitudes. In 1889 they came in myriads, 

 from the soil of my vineyard, where my colony hibernated, 

 and also migrating to me in swarms, generally from the west- 

 ward. At the same time this rose-bug irruption seemed 

 prevalent over a wide expanse of territory. Seemingly, in 

 their primary colonies, where we have known these insects 

 for many years, they have been steadily increasing and have 

 at last swarmed forth to "fresh fields and pastures new." 

 There is reason to fear that this swarming may continue. It 

 is a rule of life that, when supplied with food, population tends 

 to increase and occupy new territory. The Colorado beetle 

 staid in its western home until our extending agriculture of- 

 fered it inducements and facilities for emigration to the east. 

 When it could find food it started on its travels. It is here at 

 home with us, and, while we grow food for it, the potato-bug 

 naturally will enlarge its family and be our thriving guest. For 

 a time there was hope that like some other epidemics this bug- 

 affliction might pass away ; but this hope is yearly disap- 

 pointed. If Macrodactylus siibspinosus thrives upon our 

 agriculture as does Doryphora decemlineata there is work in 

 store for our entomologists. As a foe to viticulture, the rose- 

 bug is more dangerous than all our rots and mildews. Those 

 who have suffered from slight attacks of this insect pest have 

 no conception of what it may be. When they invaded my 

 premises last summer, 1889, they devoured all the fruit on 

 some 4,000 vines in spite of every effort to prevent them. I 

 was not shorthanded, and for several weeks I waged constant 

 war upon them, employing every means of destruction which 

 could be suggested. With me the visitation of the bugs lasted 

 a month, and when they were gone my grapes were gone. 

 The grapes I harvested were from vines which they failed to' 

 visit. 



The experiments I was making to test preventives of Grape- 

 rot were chiefly a failure, because where the rose-bugs came 

 they left no grapes to rot. Thus, in an isolated block of 450 

 vines devoted to certain special treatments, and which at the 

 first treatment were full of blossoms, I did not find a cluster 

 left when I went to spray them again. I have a number of 

 vines of specially valued sorts, which I made special efforts to 

 protect. Every morning for three weeks I visited them, be- 

 fore sunrise, and often through the .day, knocking off the bugs 

 and killing them on the ground. I thus killed daily hundreds 

 of bugs on every vine. Often when I jarred a vine the ground 

 beneath it would look yellow from their number. It is need- 

 less to say that no grape blossoms escaped on these vines. 



