66 
the guidance of nature, thinking the sooner they run up to their limit 
the better. 
“ I do not believe in cutting and pinching off the tops of trees, though 
considered by some highly advantageous. There is no danger that they will 
blow down from excessive height, unless planted too closely together, as 
nature will provide roots proportionate to their wants and exposure; and 
the fruit, though the contrary is often urged, is less liable to be blown 
off from the long and gently swinging limb, than from the short, stiff, and 
stunted branch, that stubbornly defies the breeze. If the tops of trees 
are cut off, the head will fill up with wood, and an additional necessity 
for cutting will thus arise. The knife should be kept away, except 
where branches cross and rub. I wash my trees with a mixture of soap 
suds twice as strong as it comes from the wash tub, and unleached ashes, 
adding two quarts of the latter to each pail full of the former, and put¬ 
ting it on and brushing with a short hard broom until the trees are clean 
and smooth. This I do in the month of June. All the manure I ever 
used was a bushel of leached ashes, that three or four years ago I put 
around each tree. 
* ✓ 
“My soil is a dark loam, with a slight admixture of sand and resting 
on coarse gravel. It has been under cultivation for fifteen or sixteen 
years. 
“ It is my decided opinion that root grafting, when properly managed* 
is the best method of cultivating the apple, from the fact that nineteen 
out of twenty of the scions thus grafted form their own roots, and con¬ 
sequently make sound trees. Much depends, how r ever, upon after man¬ 
agement, for if left unprotected during the first winter they will receive 
^n irreparable injury, the wood becoming dark and the pith black and 
dead. Stock grafts suffer from the same cause. If the stock is thrifty 
and strong, the growth will be too rapid, and by spring will be killed 
down a foot or more. It then takes a new start; the buds near the bot¬ 
tom of the scion look somewhat healthy, but as they approach up to the 
dead top they appear sickly, and the last few buds will open but to 
die, and before the middle of summer, perhaps, half of the new growth 
is dead, and I doubt whether that which is left is sound and healthy. I 
will not say that all stock grafts exhibit the effects I have described, but 
those I have examined in Wisconsin show this appearance to a greater or 
