THE RURAL NEW-YORRER 
OCTOEER 26 
P<?m0logkal. 
FRUIT TREE QUESTIONS. 
GRAFTING A VARIETY ON ITS 
OWN SEEDLINGS. 
An Early Variety on a Late One. 
PAINT FOE TEEE INJUKIES. 
The following notes are written in answer 
to these questions, which were sent by a 
subscriber in California: 
1. Is it advisable to graft any variety of 
tree on sprouts raised from its own 
seed? 
■ 2. Would it injure tree or fruit growth to 
grow an early-fruiting or maturing va¬ 
riety on a very late one ? 
3. Will not common paint be a preventive 
of injuries to tree bodies from mice and 
insects? 
4. Is it possible that a tree or fruit will 
grow ‘equally well on light as heavy 
soils,’ as claimed by some?” 
FROM T. H. HOSKINS, M. D. 
1. There is no reason to believe that any 
ill result would follow the grafting of cions 
from any tree upon seedlings of the same 
tree, if of sufficiently vigorous growth. 
There is some theoretical presumption in 
favor of it, since there would be a prob¬ 
ability of close resemblance in habit of 
growth, and therefore less likelihood of 
either cion or stock overgrowing the other. 
2. As a rule, no. Yet, as there are cer¬ 
tainly cases where grafts upon a slow-grow¬ 
ing stock from a tardy bearer are forced in¬ 
to early bearing, so it is possible that in 
some cases grafting an early sort upon a 
late sort might have some retarding effect 
upon the maturity of the fruit. Yet in 
large orchards grafted upon miscellaneous 
stocks, few if any striking instances have 
been observed. 
3. Possibly; but I should not regard it 
as safe, unless annually renewed. The best 
and cheapest protection is to tie thin slips 
of wood (lath, waste veneer, old shingles, 
staves, or clapboard), around the trunks. 
I have practiced this for 20 years without 
losing a tree, at a cost of less than one cent 
per tree, annually. 
4. Yes, it is quite possible, as is shown 
by fine orchards on both sorts of land. But 
though this is often true, especially with 
apples and pears, there is a choice to be 
made, when possible. Thus, the quince 
cannot be grown with assured profit on 
light soils; and the foreign plums and their 
seedlings also do much better on strong 
land. On the other hand, cherries, and our 
native plums thrive best on the lighter, 
gravelly soils; and the same is true of the 
peach. But whatever the soil, it may be 
so amended and improved, by skilled cul¬ 
ture, that a very large assortment of tree 
fruits can be grown on a limited area with 
reasonable success, so far as the soil itself 
is concerned. It must be remembered that 
climatic influences will also have to be con¬ 
sidered, since results are not dependent 
upon soil or culture alone. 
Orleans County, Vt. 
FROM P. M. AUGUR. 
1. If the inquirer means a variety in its 
true sense, I would say: “No.” If he means 
to graft a seedling upon seedling stocks of 
its own species I would say: “Yes.” Thus 
the pear will grow upon the thorn, the 
Mountain Ash, the apple and the quince; 
but in general it does best upon the pear, 
and for general orchard purposes it 
should be so worked ; but it is not impor¬ 
tant to go closer than that by working it 
upon seedlings of its own variety. 
2. I should say in general: “No,” and 
yet the character of the stock does some¬ 
what modify the time of ripening and the 
quality of fruit. For instance, the Rox- 
bury Russet grafted upon the Golden 
Sweet, which is early in ripening, is modi¬ 
fied both in flavor and, sometimes at least, in 
keeping qualities. Therefore seedlings of 
some late, hardy keeper would be better 
in general than seedlings of a very early 
variety. 
3. I should say emphatically: “No.” 
Oil paint in general I think injurious to 
trees. Better use a decoction of tobacco 
stems and soap in the right proportions, 
applied in a lime wash, with sulphur added. 
This will be excellent in cases of black, 
gummy exudations on the peach or cherry, 
and will indeed be safe and useful always. 
A conical mound of earth or coal ashes will 
protect against mice. 
4. Here the law of adaptation comes in. 
Some varieties seem best adapted to heavy, 
others to light soils. It is safe and wise to 
learn what varieties have proved best in any 
given locality, and with similar soil, cli¬ 
mate and surroundings one should use the 
successful kinds. No one rule of universal 
application can be given. 
Middlesex County, Conn. 
FROM A. W. SIAS. 
1. I shall take the affirmative of this 
question for the following reasons : 1. Be¬ 
cause my experience teaches me that the 
greater the similarity between the stock 
and the cion, or graft, the better the re¬ 
sult. 2. I contend that it is not advisable 
or practicable to graft anything but seed¬ 
lings. To explain : if a greater number of 
Baldwins or Greenings are wanted one 
should, first, sow the seeds of these varieties 
and when the young trees are one year old 
graft the Baldwin seedlings with Baldwin 
cions, Greening seedlings with Greening 
cions, etc., making it a point that the stock 
and graft, or cion must be near relatives, 
and, unlike the occasional results of the 
union of first cousins in the animal king¬ 
dom, there will be no fools. I contend that 
where the stock and graft are near rela¬ 
tives they will have a similar cell structure 
with a cell caliber in the stock about the 
same as in the graft; hence the stock will 
not carry up sap to the graft faster than 
it can be properly utilized, and so that ab¬ 
normal beetle-like deformity so common in 
case of the union of different species and 
distant relatives will not be produced. 2. 
My experience leads me to take the nega¬ 
tive side of this question. Perhaps the 
greatest disparity in season of fruit ma¬ 
turity with the union of two varieties with 
which I have experimented is in the case of 
the Flemish Beauty Pear on the June- 
berry. Now while it is a well attested fact 
that this union will dwarf both the pear 
and June-berry stock to a considerable ex¬ 
tent, it is not clear to me that it dwarfs 
the fruit of either stock, or that it dwarfs 
or shortens the life of either plant owing to 
the inequality of the time of the ripening 
of the fruit. 
3. Yes; but to what extent can we use 
this preventive without injury to the 
tree ? Will some one explain ? 
4. The largest and most rapid-growing 
trees I have yet seen were on light soils, 
and where the water supply and other nec¬ 
essary conditions were not wanting; but 
where droughts are frequent and the mer¬ 
cury ranges very low, I would prefer heavy 
soils every time. 
Olmsted County. Minn. 
FROM W. M. BENNINGER. 
1. It is not neccessary to graft or bud on 
stocks grown from seed from the same va¬ 
riety of fru’t; it is better to use seedlings 
from wild or hardy fruit; and budding 
on one-year-old stock is the best. However, 
apples do best on apple roots and pears on 
pear roots and so on; budding on other 
classes of fruit is not advisable. The only 
extensive change made is in case of the 
pear on the quince for dwarfing pur¬ 
poses and only a few varieties are suc¬ 
cessfully worked in this way, and the stand¬ 
ard or a pear on a pear is preferable. 
2. I am of the opinion that an early apple 
grafted on the top of an old tree of a very 
late variety would, for the first few years’ 
fruiting, ripen later or that it would resem¬ 
ble the original trees in some respect; but a 
change will occur as soon as the sap is uni¬ 
form to the graft on top. Young trees will 
hardly ever mature their fruit the first 
year in bearing, and if they do so in any 
case, I think it is due to the natural root, 
but they generally mature their fruit the 
second year in bearing. 
3. Paint would injure the trees; it 
would close the pores and harden the 
bark. I find soft-soap suds the best 
wash for young trees. The bark of a tree 
must be kept soft and smooth, and the best 
way to keep it so is by cultivation and fer¬ 
tilizing. Very old trees with rough and 
old bark may be white-washed once in 
a great while, but this should not be re¬ 
peated, as it would'injure the bark. 
4. All fruits succeed best on heavy soils. 
Peaches and sweet cherries can be grown 
on light gravelly soils and they will bear 
better if well fertilized and cultivated* 
Lycoming County, Pa. 
FROM E. WILLIAMS. 
1. I take the term sprouts to mean seed¬ 
ling stocks and cions. If so, the questiou is 
too broad a one to admit of an affirmative 
answer. When a youth, I planted a lot of 
apple seeds selected from one of our hardiest 
and most reliable sorts, thinking thereby 
to obtain a more hardy constitution to start 
with than by using a promiscuous lot of 
seeds of whose antecedents I knew nothing. 
The seedlings showed, as all seedlings will, 
considerable variation in vigor of growth— 
some being much stronger and more vigor¬ 
ous than others, while some were so weak 
as to be rejected as unfit for budding. 
Most of these stocks were budded to differ¬ 
ent varieties ; many of them to the variety 
which produced the seed. I do not know 
that these made any better trees than other 
stocks would have made; but I certainly 
cannot see any objection to such a course, 
or do I believe there is anything wrong in 
it; but it is not always practicable, espe¬ 
cially in large nurseries, and even if it could 
be demonstrated that it is advisable, it 
would enhance the cost of such trees beyond 
their value for commercial purposes. I 
think the laws of heredity have much to do 
with the health and longevity of trees— 
more perhaps than we generally suppose— 
and I should expect to secure a larger per¬ 
centage of healthy, long-lived trees from 
seed of our native apples and pears than 
from our modern and more highly im¬ 
proved kinds: but I have no facts in my 
own experience fully to confirm this idea. 
We have in all this region native pear trees 
that are, perhaps, a century old. I 11 their 
natural condition they bear a hard, austere 
winter fruit, only fit for cooking; but I 
have never seen one of these trees in its 
natural condition, or grafted to other kinds, 
that exhibited a symptom of pear blight; 
hence I conclude that seedlings from these 
trees would make admirable stocks on 
which to work our more improved varieties, 
and I believe they would possess a hardier 
constitution than stocks grown from seeds 
of the latter. As our fruits advance and 
improve in quality, there seems to be a 
retrogression in health or hardiness in about 
the same ratio. 
This correspondent’s idea, if applied to 
cherries, would be a difficult one to pursue 
owing to the fact that very few seeds of our 
improved kinds ever perfect themselves, 
while the native black or Mazzard Cher¬ 
ries almost invariably perfect their seeds, 
and hence are generally used as stocks for 
our Heart and Bigarreau varieties. 
The idea when applied to peaches would 
meet with opposition at once, as the uni¬ 
versal sentiment among peach-growers is 
that natural southern peach seeds produce 
the best possible stocks for this fruit. It is 
through the seeds of our improved kinds 
that we must look for and obtain further 
improvement, and yet I cannot see why a 
seedling peach tree grown from a healthy 
Crawford’s Late seed would not be as good 
a stock on which to grow a tree from its 
parent as one grown from southern seed, 
unless it might be deficient in some element 
of hardiness or health. The principle of 
heredity and in-and-in breeding comes in 
here; but whether this influence is as po¬ 
tent in vegetable as in animal life, or whether 
it is totally inert, I have no facts at hand 
to sustain either side of the question, if 
such exist. Who knows whether an Early 
York, or Late Crawford, budded on seed¬ 
lings of the same, would make less satisfac¬ 
tory trees than if budded on stocks from 
southern seed ? Who knows ! 
2. There would probably be more or less 
influence one way or the other, but not of 
an injurious character. It is often neces¬ 
sary and advisable to graft a weak and 
crooked-growing variety, like the Winter 
Nelis Pear, for instance, on a strong and 
sturdy grower like the Buffum, to aid in 
overcoming this objectionable feature. A 
late-maturing variety as a stock for an early- 
maturing one might have a retarding influ¬ 
ence, but it is uncertain, and we have not 
yet mastered the subtle mysteries of Nature 
to that extent that we can tell in advance 
just what to expect from these combina¬ 
tions. Every variety of fruit seems to have its 
own peculiar qualities well environed, else 
we should see more changes and variations 
than we do. Take the matter of color, for 
instance. Why should not this blending 
of colors show an influence P If so, we 
should expect to see the color of a red ap¬ 
ple toned down when grown on a stock of a 
white, green or yellow variety; but it mat¬ 
ters not how many different veins the nour¬ 
ishment passes through, the color comes 
true at last. In speaking on this subject to 
an old neighbor some years ago, he referred 
me to his Baldwin grafts set in the tops of 
Harrison trees, from which he invariably 
got his highest-colored fruit. The size did 
not average so large as on other trees, but 
the color was more intense and it was al¬ 
ways so. Why ? 
3. It would probably prevent injuries 
from these sources. Paints of various 
kinds have been recommended and con¬ 
demned for this purpose ; but were I to use 
them, it would be with caution. Lime 
whitewash, or whale-oil soap, applied with 
sufficient frequency, would probably be 
quite as effective and not at all injurious. 
4. Universal experience proves such 
claims fallacious. Argument to prove the 
contrary is unnecessary, as abundant evi¬ 
dence of indisputable character exists in 
almost an 3 T locality to show the absurdity 
of any such claim. 
Essex County, N. J. 
FROM T. T. LYON. 
1. There can be no doubt that all graft¬ 
ing is deleterious to the vigor, health and 
longevity of the resultant plant just in pro¬ 
portion to the dissimilarity of the stock 
and cion, and their consequent inability to 
form a perfect union. The grafting of 
cions from an unworked seedling, upon 
sprouts from its own roots, although use¬ 
less, so far as improvement of either tree or 
fruit is concerned, insures the most perfect 
adaptation of cion to stock. A seedling of 
many species of plants is more or less liable 
to vary from the parental type, and such 
va-iation may be assumed to affect more or 
less unfavorably its value as a stock on 
which to engraft the original variety. The 
results of the use of stocks of the character 
last indicated may doubtless fairly be as¬ 
sumed to afford occasion for the conviction, 
so widely entertained, that seedling trees 
are more hardy and productive than those 
budded or grafted. 
2. Cases are occasionally given in which 
stocks are alleged to have more or less in¬ 
fluenced and modified the season or other 
qualities of the variety worked upon them. 
That the stock does frequently, to a limited 
extent, exert such modifying influence, is 
doubtless beyond question ; but I questiou 
whether either the fact of such variation, 
or its direction or extent, can, in the 
present state of knowledge of the subject, 
be determined except by actual trial. 
3. Paints, prepared and applied with 
linseed oil, would doubtless be injurious to 
trees by arresting transpiration from the 
surface but for the fact that the oil soon 
hardens and becomes ruptured by the en¬ 
largement consequent upon growth. Al¬ 
though occasionally used with impunity, 
to destroy insect enemies, it seems prefer¬ 
able to repel mice and similar enemies by 
the use of a more porous and less dangerous 
material. 
4. Experience has long since demon¬ 
strated the fact that most, if not all, classes 
and varieties of trees possess a limited but 
variable capacity to adapt themselves to 
variations of soil; but the fact is equally 
well established that any given variety or 
class of tree or fruit, will, other things be¬ 
ing equal, reach the most satisfactory re¬ 
sults only when its preferences are 
thoroughly satisfied. 
Van Buren County, Mich. 
FROM P. BARRY. 
t 
1. There is no objection to grafting a 
variety of fruit on its own seedlings, pro¬ 
vided they are healthy and vigorous and 
suitable for stocks. 
2. To graft an early-fruiting variety of 
fruit tree on a late one, may not injure the 
fruit, tut may retard its fruiting. If the 
trees grafted upon were of feeble growth, 
it would naturally unfavorably affect the 
one grafted upon it. 
3. Common paint on the bodies of trees 
might prevent injury from mice, but would 
probably kill the trees. 
4. Some trees will grow equally well in 
light and heavy soils, but among fruit trees 
some succeed better in light and some in 
heavy soils. 
Monroe County, N. Y. 
FROM AN OLD FRUIT-GROWER. 
1. It is not probable that we should gain 
anything, on the whole, by procuring seed¬ 
lings from any variety to graft that variety 
on. There are some particular kinds, as, 
for instance, the Buffum Pear, the seed¬ 
lings of which would be more vigorous like 
