THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN. 
159 
A PLANTER SEEKING KNOWLEDGE. 
Martin Woodall, a planter, at Netewaka, Kan., has 
asked Secretary Coburn of the Kansas state board of agri¬ 
culture these questions ; 
1. Are budded apple trees much superior to grafted 
ones ? 
2. Can we convince ourselves, when we receive the 
trees at the depot, that they are whole-root instead of 
piece-root ? 
3. Is it practicable, and good farming, to plant young 
trees in the same spot where apple trees were planted 
twenty-two years ago, and dead three or four years ago? 
4. The agent claims that trees will do just as well in 
the blue grass sod as in well cultivated land, and that it 
is injurious to the apple tree to be cultivated, for it grows 
too fast. 
5. Can an agent guarantee that the trees he will sell 
are proof against borers? 
6. We can buy trees at 7 cents apiece; he charges $5 
per dozen. Do you think his trees are much superior? 
7. Is it not possible for this agent to deliver to us in¬ 
ferior trees ? 
8. Cannot we buy just as good trees from our home 
nurseries as from eastern firms ? 
9. We tell the agent that it is the climate that kills 
our trees; he says it is the bad trees. Which is correct ? 
10. He is selling a Russian apple tree. Is it not a fact 
that the so-called Russian apple tree is a fraud? 
The following answers prepared by Professor S. C. 
Mason of the State Agricultural college at Manhattan, 
Kan., have been published by the Kansas Partner: 
1. Budded apple trees possess no advantage to the 
purchaser over grafted trees. The practice of budding is 
wholly one of convenience to the nurseryman. 
2. It would take a practical nurseryman to distinguish 
surely between trees worked on whole roots or on pieces, 
and the value of the tree does not depend upon these 
points. A well-grown tree with straight, clean trunk, 
well-balanced top and an abundance of branching and 
fibrous roots, is the one to select, whatever its mode of 
propagation. 
3. A young orchard had much better be set on a piece 
of ground not before occupied by apple trees. I know of 
a case to the point where the young orchard covers the 
land occupied by the old one, and also a few rows on new 
land adjoining. You could pass by in the road and tell 
to a row where the old orchard ground ends, and the new 
land begins. 
4. The best orchard-growers advise keeping the young 
orchard planted to some crop requiring clean cultivation, 
such as corn, beans or potatoes, till it comes into bearing, 
then seeding down to red clover or orchard grass. Blue 
grass or anything making a close, compact sod, should 
never be allowed in an orchard. It sheds water like an 
oil-cloth, while clover renders the ground loose and ready 
to receive rain, and its roots prepare the way for the fine 
fibres of the apple roots to take hold of the soil. 
5. The agent who represents his trees as being proof 
against borers, blight or any other devastation common 
to fruit trees, shows evidence of intent to defraud and 
should be hustled on his way. 
6, 7, 8. I prefer to answer these questions together. 
The farmer can buy all the first-class two-year-old apple 
trees of standard, well-tested varieties that he can haul 
home for 7 or 8 cents apiece. Why is it that so many 
will listen to the oily-tongued tree peddlers, who ask four 
or five prices for budded trees, and whole-root trees, and 
frost-proof trees, and blight-proof trees, and borer-proof 
trees, and trees bearing strange and wonderful fruits, and 
trees bearing two crops a year, can only be explained by 
the theory of the lamented showman, P. T. Barnum. He 
said that the American people liked to be humbugged. 
When the average farmer will read carefully the farm and 
horticultual papers of his section of the country, and the 
reports of his state horticultural society, make his selec¬ 
tion of varieties in accordance with what he finds recom¬ 
mended there and buy his trees of his nearest reliable 
home nurseryman, then the oily-tongued rascal will dis¬ 
appear from the land and the honest representative of a 
reliable nursery will not be in danger of having the bull 
doer set on him when he calls to solicit the farmer’s orders. 
o 
There are hundreds of acres of the finest sort of apple 
trees grown in Kansas every year, and shipped in car-load 
lots to eastern nursery firms. How many of these find 
their way back here again in the filling of retail orders? 
It would make “mighty interestin’ reading,”Tf we could 
know. The farmers themselves are to blame for the pre¬ 
sent condition of things. As long as a man can sell goods 
by offering something marvelous, either in trees, fruits, 
vegetables or flowers, there will be plenty of men in busi¬ 
ness with just those lines of goods (on paper), and the 
careful, conservative dealer and grower will suffer in pro¬ 
portion. 
9. There is probably no country on the face of the 
earth where a young orchard of carefully-selected trees, 
well planted and well tended, will do better than in East¬ 
ern Kansas. They come quickly into bearing and are 
quickly old and unprofitable. About twenty or twenty- 
five years may be considered the life of an orchard in 
this state, and plans should be made to have others 
coming on to replace them. No patent method of pro¬ 
pagation or new-fangled stock will prolong the life of a 
Kansas orchard much beyond this age. 
10. There have been a large number of varieties of 
apples introduced from Russia into the United States and 
Canada. Many of them possess great hardiness, render¬ 
ing them of considerable value in the cold northern 
o 
portions of our country. Very few of them are equal in 
quality to our old and well-tested sorts. None of them 
are worth paying fancy prices for, or planting in great 
numbers. 
J. II. Hettlk.mikk, Wouduuhn, Ohk. —“We consider yours the most 
vuluable paper wliicli comes to our desk.’’ 
