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4t I cultivate my fruit by root grafting in tlie following manner : I put 
the apple seeds from which I intend to raise the root in a small pit, together 
with sand, to be frozen during the winter. Early in the spring, I sow 
them in drills two feet apart. In the fall, I take the largest of the plants 
out of the seed bed, cut off the tops and lay the roots, together with the 
scions that I wish to propagate, which I also select and cut in the fall, 
in a pit with sand, covering them up securely from the frost. 
“I commence grafting about the first of February, taking out of the 
pit in the morning enough of roots and scions to last through the day. 
I cut the roots in pieces two and one-half inches long, and the scions 
four inches. I graft the roots and scions together, and plant them in a 
box fourteen inches wide and twenty-two inches long, filled with earth 
which has been secured from frosts, leaving two inches of the scion out 
of the earth and putting five hundred in a box. I then place the box in 
the green-house and the plants soon commence growing. About the first 
of May I transplant them to rows two feet apart with a space of eight 
inches between the plants. By this time they have grown from one to 
five inches. I keep them clear by hoeing and weeding until fall, when, 
before there are any hard frosts, I take them up and bury them in trenches 
and cover them up for the winter. The next spring I plant them in rows 
four feet apart one way and ten or twelve inches the other, and, as during 
the previous summer, I keep the ground free from weeds. The follow¬ 
ing spring I prune them for the first time—this I do before the buds 
starts much. 
4t After letting them stand in the nursery rows four or five years, I 
transplant into the orchard all whose age and growth will admit. Their 
first limbs are now from four and a half to five feet from the ground. 
The limbs of many of my trees of this size last fall, when full of apples, 
bent to the ground and covered a space of twenty-five feet in circumfer¬ 
ence. They commence bearing freely when from six to eight years old 
from the graft. From each of several trees twelve years old I gathered, 
last fall, over twelve bushels of apples. Had the grafts been on stocks, 
as some recommend, I would not have had half the yield. I prune every 
spring until no more shoots come out from the bodies of the trees, but 
never cut off the tops of any of the leading branches, letting them follow 
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