TWENTY-FOURTH ANNUAL FRUIT-GROWERS' CONVENTION. 101 



dwarf the tree, to give it added vigor, or to adapt it to the soil or climate. 

 In like manner, disease, particularly that which is inherent or hereditary, 

 will be communicated between stock and graft; hence, the importance of 

 grafts or buds from healthy trees worked only upon healthy stocks. 



Millions of seedlings which are being used as stocks for fruit trees are 

 not healthy, and it is only the exceptionally favorable conditions which 

 exist in California that prevent, in a measure, the more noticeable effects 

 in our orchards. As the land becomes weakened by continual cropping, 

 the effects of poor stocks will soon be seen. The reasons are, mainly, 

 the demand for cheap trees and the fact that many California nursery- 

 men are so called because they have rented some land and planted a 

 certain acreage of seedlings for budding; they have had no previous 

 training or experience, and, at the turn of the wheel, they are just as 

 likely to boom some oil stock, plant sugar beets, or marry a rich widow. 

 In other words, they are neither nurserymen nor horticulturists, and 

 never will be. 



To grow apple seedlings that are healthy and free from aphis it is 

 essential, in the first place, that the seed be good and plump and not 

 taken indiscriminately from any and all varieties. Seed from the crab- 

 apple is by some considered the best. In the second place, new land 

 must be used, away from old orchards, and open to the full sweep of the 

 wind; a rich river bottom is generally the best. And in the third place, 

 the seedlings must be kept growing very vigorously until fall, by thor- 

 ough cultivation and frequent irrigation. For small plantings the seed 

 may be sown in boxes and the plants transplanted when several inches 

 high. 



The late John Lewelling claimed that seed from Rawle's Janet and 

 Golden Russet produced roots which were free from the woolly aphis, 

 and I have growing in my experimental grounds named seedling apples 

 from New Zealand which are said not only to be aphis proof, but to 

 bear fruit of exceptional quality. 



It has been the practice for many years in Australia and New 

 Zealand and, to a lesser extent in this country, to grow apples on 

 Northern Spy stocks, which are aphis proof. Some other varieties, 

 such as Winter Majetin, are also used. The method is to graft cions of 

 the Northern Spy on to small pieces of apple roots, and plant them in 

 the ordinary way. Roots will grow from the graft, and the next fall 

 the plants are taken up, the apple roots cut off, and we then have a 

 strong Northern Spy apple on its own roots. These are planted out, 

 either in the orchard or in the nursery, and grafted with the variety it 

 is desired to propagate. 



For dwarfing the apple the Paradise stock is used. This is a 

 European wild apple, and is propagated by layering; it is quite liable 

 to the attack of the aphis, and ashes should be used freely when trees 



