268 
all mature the portion of field to be saved for seed 
should be well ridged to keep down weeds and grass, 
and to protect the tubers from an excess of water, 
also from heat. With a little care in storing and at¬ 
tending to the ventilation there should be no trouble 
from the seed sprouting in storage. By following the 
above and by keeping the vines free from blight by 
thorough spraying a grower can have the satisfaction 
of eliminating several factors of chance. 
Answering the direct questions: I see no reason 
why the hill method of selecting seed possibly com¬ 
bined with the importation of enough Northern seed 
every few years to add vigor should not give us ideal 
conditions. As to whether seed keeps better stored 
in the North or stored by the user my judgment is, it 
all depends on the care given the seed. The indica¬ 
tions are that sometimes the seed speculator either 
puts too many tubers in one bin, or lets them become 
heated in transportation. Furthermore, he always has 
trouble to distinguish one variety from another; as a 
result the purchaser has g^een .sterns .blue stems, white 
blossoms, purple and pink blossoms, all in one field. 
s. A. F. 
____ i 
THE ‘‘INJECTION TREATMENT” FOR TREES 
The Globe (Utica) in a recent issue gave qi. r , a full 
account of treatment of a non-bearing plum tree by a 
Mr. Morrison, of Delaware. The article states that in 
this case the tree had not previously borne any amount 
of fruit, and the owner being a believer in calomel for 
man, conceived the idea of trying the same treatment on 
his tree. As a result the tree the following season was 
heavily laden with fine fruit. My attention was called 
to the article by a manufacturer of fertilizers, who could 
readily see how a sufficient amount of high-grade material 
might have the recorded effect, but all who heard of the 
case were at a loss to understand how a few grains of 
calomel could produce such a marvelous change in a 
single season. Now if such a simple method as boring 
a small hole in the trunk of a tree and injecting therein 
a few grains of calomel for a non-bearing tree, or perhaps 
a nax-cotic for one that has been too active, and sets too 
much fruit, it seems that we may soon reach the point 
where we can diagnose the case and from a small bottle 
administer a few drops, or perhaps a pill, and give our 
attention to other matters. Also, how much easier it 
will be to walk around with a few small bottles in one’s 
pocket than to haul with teams bags of fertilizer weigh¬ 
ing 200 pounds each. We would of course be sorry for 
our friends, the fertilizer makers and distributors, but 
they would simply need to remodel their factories into 
drug stores and continue business. We would like to 
know if there is anything in the calomel treatment, or 
was the change due to other causes? l. *>• L - 
Delaware. 
The question raised is essentially whether or not 
the fruitfulness of orchard trees can be materially 
affected by certain injections. On the value of the 
particular material referred to, calomel, apparently no 
definite experiments have been made, probably because 
it is insoluble and hence would doubtless remain 
practically inert and stationary in the tree. The sin 
gle favorable case cited, 
in which there were no 
similar untreated trees 
and no repetitions or 
duplications of test, is 
evidently insufficient for 
any conclusion. More¬ 
over, the well-known 
fickleness in bearing 
habit of many trees and 
the many other possible 
factors involved make it 
extremely doubtful 
whether the increase in 
fruiting was in any way 
connected with the in¬ 
jection of calomel. In 
other words, the proba¬ 
bilities are that calomel 
is wholly useless for the 
purpose indicated. If it 
had any influence at all, 
it was doubtless indirect, 
as a result of the partial 
girdling of the tree ac¬ 
companying its intro¬ 
duction, but girdling can 
be done in a better way. 
On the value of other 
injected materials con¬ 
siderable experimental 
work has been done. 
Very little of this work 
has been directed exact¬ 
ly at the question of 
fruitfulness, however, most of it being along the line 
of tree medication or rejuvenation, but the results 
observed are of interest in showing approximately 
what may be expected from such operations. 
The earliest work that has come to the writer’s 
attention is that of a Russian, Mokrzhetski, reported 
in Russian periodicals in 1903 (and abstracted in 
Experiment Station Record, Vol. XVI, p. 982). Un¬ 
A SCENE ON THE LAWN AT HOPE FARM. Fig. 
thought it might after several years serve as a guide 
for determining which elements should be added to 
the soil. All these experiments are of interest, but 
must be considered suggestive, rather than conclusive 
In America the earliest work apparently is that of 
Bolley. (See Reports of North Dakota Station for 
1904 and 1907.) He used many substances and con¬ 
cludes “that formaldehyde, copper sulphate and iron 
GRAPE GRAFTING. 
One who undertakes 
the grafting' of the grape 
should understand that 
it is a somewhat difficult 
operation, not that it 
need be largely a failure, 
but that the greatest 
care must be exercised 
in order to make the re¬ 
sults entirely satisfac¬ 
tory. Care must be taken 
not only in performing the operation itself but also 
in the selection of the stocks and the scions as well. 
The stocks should be vigorous and healthy, and the 
scions in addition to that should be taken from mature 
vines; scions from young vines are apt to be largely 
a failure. I select the wood for the scions in the 
late Fall previous to the time when they are to be 
used, cut it in lengths as long as convenient and 
March 4, 
sulphate, when properly applied, tend to hasten the 
recovery of apple trees from sunscald and sour heart, 
and to check the development of apple blight.” The 
formaldehyde was used at strengths varying from 
one-half part to two parts per 1,000 of water, the 
rapid-absorbing trees requiring the weaker solutions. 
He reports increased vigor and fruiting in the treated 
trees, but states that care is demanded to avoid in¬ 
jury, and the resistance of trees to this injury was 
apparently extremely variable. 
Other work in this country has been done by 
Chandler at the Missouri Station, testing the effect 
of potash salts on the hardiness of peach trees; and 
experiments on the value of injections in the control 
of fire blight, especially in nursery trees, are in pro¬ 
gress by V. B. Stewart, at the Cornell Station. In 
the last-named work, various fungicidal solutions 
have been readily taken up by the young trees through 
tubes attached to cut-off branches, but the result has 
usually been serious injury to the trees, even with 
solutions as dilute as one part of copper sulphate to 
2,000 of water. Similar serious injury to the young 
trees resulted from corrosive sublimate at one to 
500; lime-sulphur at one to 200, and slight injury from 
potassium permanganate at one to 2,000. Hence little 
hope of success with injections of such inorganic ma¬ 
terials is now entertained. 
The whole subject of tree-injections is thus seen tct 
be in a rather unsettled state. The fact has been 
clearly established that, with a proper arrangement of 
tubes and receptacles, trees in foliage will readily 
take up considerable quantities of soluble salts. 
Nutritive salts or solutions in moderate amounts are 
frequently beneficial, though the effect seems to be 
more or less confined to one portion of the tree. Cer¬ 
tain poisons, when used in extremely weak solutions, 
may be stimulative to trees, as they are to animals 
and other plants, and they may afford some protec¬ 
tion again certain diseases, though the evidence is not 
at all clear on this point, and their use must be at¬ 
tended with great caution. The problem is evidently 
one for the investigator, and one that requires much 
more study before anything definite can be offered to 
the practical orchardist. 
Some of the possibilities pictured by the corre¬ 
spondent may be attainable in the future, but for the 
present there are no permanent short-cuts to fruit¬ 
fulness in trees. For this, the essentials are healthy, 
mature trees of proper variety and location; satis¬ 
factory pollination; protection from the various 
enemies, and sufficient plant food and tillage or 
other care to maintain proper growth and health in 
the tree. It is usually some deficiency in one or more 
of these factors that causes lack of fruitfulness. In 
certain extreme cases, however, when everything 
seems to be right and the trees still fail to bear, the 
condition may often be 
temporarily remedied by 
a judicious . shocking of 
the trees, by such means 
as sudden checking of 
growth or careful gird¬ 
ling at the proper place 
and time. Beyond this 
we cannot go at the 
present time, certainly 
not by any known sys¬ 
tem of injections. And 
until more is known on 
the subject, it is the 
writer’s opinion that all 
such “remedies” should 
be avoided by orchard- 
ists, especially those with' 
uncertain history and 
considerable prices at¬ 
tached. J. P. STEWART. 
Penn. Expt. Station. 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
der the heading of a “New Method of Healing and 
Nourishing Trees,” he describes briefly his results 
from injecting various nutritive salts, both dry and 
in solution, into some five hundred trees. Tests 
were made upon oaks, poplars, frost-injured syca¬ 
mores, diseased Acacias, grapes, pears and apples. 
Iron sulphate is reported to have been successfully 
used against chlorosis, anthracnose of grape, and 
some fungous diseases of the apple. Solutions of 
acetic, oxalic, and tartaric acids were used against 
gummosis; and solutions of arsenic, copper sulphate, 
manganese, and barium salts are said to have been 
GRAFTING THE GRAPEVINE. Fig. 72. 
used more or less successfully in combating the bark 
beetle and a species of aphis. In France, Simon in¬ 
jected solutions of nitrate of potash, copper sulphate, 
purin, and sap-like solutions into the trunks of rather 
decrepit apples, peaches, vines and potatoes, with 
marked rejuvenating effect in most cases. (See The 
Gardener’s Chronicle, London, Third Ser., 41, (1907), 
No. 1043, p. 8.) He was followed by Fron, working 
on pears and using solutions of iron sulphate and 
calcium nitrate. (See Journal de la Societe National 
d’ Horticulture de France, Paris, Fourth Ser., 10 
(1909), pp. 54-59.) Fron found that while the vigor 
of trees could usually be rather markedly increased, 
yet the improvement w.as mostly confined to a rela¬ 
tively small portion of the tree, and his net conclusion 
was that the method was of little practical value, 
