116 NEBRASKA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



REMARKS OF HON. J. STERLING MORTON AND HON. 



R. W. FURNAS. 



President — I notice the Hon. J. Sterling Morton and ex-Gov- 

 ernor Furnas are in the room ; the Society would be pleased to hear 

 from them on any subject they may wish to take up. 



Mr. Morton — As Mr. Furnas and myself were walking up here 

 from the hotel we were talking about apple trees and how short-lived 

 the orchards of to-day are when compared with those of thirty and 

 forty years ago ; and I think this would be as good a subject as any 

 for me to speak a few minutes upon. I am very much opposed to the 

 present mode of growing apple trees from root-grafts made from 

 pieces of seedling roots and I will give you my reasons for the same: 

 In 1858 I planted quite a large orchard of apple trees grown in 

 the manner I have just mentioned, and to-day there are but very 

 few of those trees living ; nearly all have died of rotten-root. After 

 a great many of them had died I got to thinking " what causes my 

 apple trees to die so fast?" So we went to work and dug up several of 

 the dead ones to see what was the matter. In nearly every instance 

 we found that a large shoulder had overgrown the root, and decay 

 had begun underneath this shoulder; there was no tap-root to any that 

 Ave dug up, and I feel satisfied that this was caused by the use of 

 piece roots in making the grafts from which these trees were grown. 

 I had noticed that the death rate was much larger after a long drouth, 

 and after discovering that the trees had no tap-roots became convinced 

 that this was the cause of so many dying. When we call to mind the 

 old orchards in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and many other eastern states, 

 and remember that they were grown from the seed, had never been 

 touched with a knife on the roots, and consequently had their original 

 tap-roots, it seems to me the early death of our orchards is explained, 

 partially, at least. I am convinced that if we would go to the ex- 

 pense of getting top-grafted trees on whole roots that our orchards 

 would be much longer lived. In Colorado I saw an orchard of root- 

 grafted trees growing near one of top-grafted trees, and by the time 

 the top- grafted trees got to bearing the root-grafts were nearly all dead. 

 This is an important question for us to look up, and I think we should 



