132 
usual depth below the surface of the soil, 
io the more or less complete dwarfing of 
the lower and earlier root system. This 
is shown in Fig. 1, which represents the 
root development from a whole-root graft, 
which was buried about five inches be- 
low the surface of the soil. The whitened 
portion of the root is the original stock. 
The other roots formed from the scion. 
All these experiments go to show that 
the use of long scions and stocks may 
be of some little advantage to nursery- 
men in inducing a better growth of trees 
during the first two or three years. The 
long scions and stocks are, however, con- 
siderably more expensive than the shorter 
ones. Planting whole-root grafts is much 
more laborious cnan planting short piece- 
root grafts. In reporting these experi- 
ments the authors say that the difference 
in growth in favor of the longer scions 
and stocks is probably not sufficient to 
repay the extra expense made necessary 
by their use. 
For the fruit grower, at least in the 
locality of the Kansas Station, the longer 
stocks appear to have no advantage 
over the shorter ones, since trees pro- 
duced from them make no greater growth 
than trees from the shorter stocks except 
in the first few years. The fact that the 
greater part of the root growth is made 
from the upper part of the stocks is evi- 
dence that the long stocks serve very little 
purpose. The production of roots from 
the scion, as occurred when short piece 
roots were used, is in many cases a direct 
advantage, since seedling stocks are very 
variable in hardiness and vigor of growth. 
Under the conditions at the Kansas sta- 
tion piece roots from two to five inches 
long are thought to give the best results, 
all things considered. 
U. S. Department of Agriculture, Farmers’ 
Bulletin No. 79. 
Apple on Pear and Pear on Apple 
The experience of nurserymen gener- 
ally seems to be that apple scions on 
pear roots result in sickly, short-lived 
trees, although it is possible to secure a 
good union and for a time the tree seems 
to do well. When the tree is set very 
deep so that the apple may put out new 
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PRACTICAL HORTICULTURE 
roots of its own a vigorous growth may 
be secured, but in this case tne pear 
root only serves the temporary purpose 
of keeping the apple growing long 
enough to enable it to secure roots of its 
own. Pear roots are more expensive than 
apple roots so that it is extremely up. 
likely that the practice will be followeq 
to any extent, even though it were mod. 
erately successful. 
Reversing the process and grafting 
pear upon apple roots results in dwarfing 
the pear. Here again it is possible to 
secure a good union but with the dwarfing 
effect noted. The tree thus produced js 
more prolific but is short-lived Planted 
deeply the pear scion will root itself the 
same as the apple but with greater diff- 
culty, according to some reports. 
Pears are grafted upon quince for the 
purpose of dwarfing them and apples may 
be grafted into “Paradise” stock, a low 
form of apple, which results in dwarfing 
the apple. 
Ed. 
Heading Trees in the Nursery 
*It is understood that the first prun- 
ing largely determines the height of the 
head of the tree. The question has arisen, 
“Why not head the tree before it leaves 
the nursery, instead of waiting until the 
year of planting?’ The system does 
have advantages some of which I shall 
set forth. One is that it brings returns 
in the bearing fruit one to two years 
before the ordinary trees begin to bear. 
We have at this time in our nursery 18- 
months’-old nursery stock headed in the 
nursery with fruit on the trees at this 
time. 
Mr. George Davenport, of Mabton, 
Wash., fruit inspector, found many fruit 
spurs on an eight-months’-old tree which 
had been headed in the nursery. We have 
been experimenting on heading, pruning 
and growing trees in the nursery for two 
years past in an attempt to produce trees, 
which, when planted in the orchard as 
fillers will produce apples the next year. 
We are making our fillers principally 
from Jonathans, Wageners and Rome 
*The “Head” of a tree is the point at which 
the trunk forks to form the main branches — 
