THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN. 
53 
expended. Chestnuts are always slow to recover from 
the check of transplanting and whether they are one, 
two, three or more years old when moved, they will not 
regain sufficient vitality and vigor to be in condition for 
grafting until after two seasons’ growth. From this 
fact arises one of the many embarrassments in the work. 
Another serious objection to grafting small stocks is the 
disinclination of the grafts to make straight trees, their 
tendency being to make crooked branching heads rather 
than erect leaders. For this reason it is better to get 
the stocks up first to a height of six or eight feet and 
then when headed with grafts of one season’s growth 
they are of saleable size and shape. Another disad¬ 
vantage in grafting small stocks is in the great number 
fhat are killed by cutting them down low, in case the 
grafts fail to take ; but if the larger stocks are worked 
high and the graft fails, suckers will usually put out which 
can be worked again the following year. It is claimed by 
some growers to be practical to bud chestnuts, but all 
our efforts in this line have been complete failures. 
If by starting with one thousand one-year chestnut 
seedlings and bestowing upon them every possible care 
and attention for five years, I should succeed in produc¬ 
ing two hundred and fifty saleable grafted trees from five 
to seven feet high and two hundred and fifty second grade 
grafted trees and possibly have two hundred and fifty 
mutilated -stocks of doubtful value left, on which the 
grafts had failed, I should consider that the operation 
had been wonderfully successful. But if the trees are 
grown and delivered in the best possible condition into 
the hands of inexperienced planters, with the ordinary 
treatment which the majority of the trees receive, a very 
large proportion of them will be lost the first or second 
season. The planter will be greatly discouraged, and 
censure the nurseryman severely for the worthlessness of 
his stock, and the extravagant prices charged for it. 
Therefore, with every chestnut tree sold, there should be 
furnished a copy of instructions calling attention to the 
fact that it is a very difficult tree to transplant success¬ 
fully, requiring the utmost care to avoid exposure of the 
roots ; the land should be heavily mulched with manure 
after planting, and the trunks of the trees bound with 
moss and burlap, and the entire top and trunk syringed 
frequently and the land watered liberally, through every 
drought that nray occur during the first and second sum¬ 
mers after planting. Last spring I transplanted five 
chestnuts that measured -from four to six inches, and 
hauled them sixteen miles from home by wagon. By 
observing the above precautions, they all lived and grew 
finely, showing that chestnuts of almost any size can be 
raised and moved successfully, if sufficient care and ex¬ 
pense are bestowed upon them, and it is certainly an 
industry worthy of encouragement. 
Samuel C. Moon. 
Morrisville Nursery, Morrisville, Pa. 
Clmong the €xct]angc5. 
Marianna Stock for Peaches. — “ My experiments 
during the last four years have demonstrated beyond 
question the worthlessness of Marianna stock for peaches. 
* * * * I have tried early and late Crawford, 
Oldmixon, Mountain Rose and Smock in Maryland and 
Delaware, and seedlings in Georgia, and the results are 
quite uniform. The stock is entirely worthless, and 
whoever trusts it, expecting to get a fine orchard, will 
lean on a broken reed. This stock has already been 
used to a considerable extent, and is still being used, 
but growers ought to be cautioned against it. Nursery¬ 
men like it because the peach takes on it readily, and 
grows off well at first. After a year or two, however, 
accidents become numerous, and before the trees are of 
bearing age the orchards become very ragged and 
scrubby. Many of the tops overgrow the stocks, and 
perish in this way. Others which have made a good 
growth for several years, and in which the root part 
seems to have kept pace with the top, become yellow 
and dry up from defective nutrition apparently. This 
has been the result in three different places in Maryland 
and Delaware, and the seedlings set on Marianna in 
Georgia for another purpose and which grew off beauti¬ 
fully for two years,last year showed the same symptoms. 
I would not set an orchard of peach on Marianna stocks 
if a man would give me the trees and bind himself to 
take all their fruit at $1.50 a basket ! It would simply 
be a waste of good land.” —Edwin F. Smith, in Ameri¬ 
can Gardening. 
RECENT literature. 
A pamphlet full of practical information, entitled “ A. B. 
C. of Agricultui’e,’- has received wide circulation by the publishers, 
W. S. Powell & Co., Baltimore, Md. It contains much that will 
cause the planter to reach again for a nurseryman's catalogue. 
The official report of the proceedings of the recent meeting of 
the Western New York Horticultural Society has been issued by 
Secretary Hall. The iproceedings of this society are regarded as 
of more than ordinary interest and value. 
Another of that popular series of books by Professor L. H. 
Bailey, of Ithaca, has ai)peai’ed. It is entitled “American Grape 
Training,” and is the outgrowth of a demand for a succinct 
account of the subjects of grape pruning and training as pi-acticed 
in the large grape growing regions of the East. Such a work had 
not before existed. No better authority on this subject could be 
found than the author, who has been assisted in the preparation of 
the book by George C. Snow, of Penn Yan, N. Y., William D. 
Barnes, of Middle Hope, N. Y., and L. C. Corbett, Profes.sor 
Bailey’s assistant at the Cornell Experiment Station. The book is 
well arranged and handsomely illustrated. New York: The 
Rural Publishing Co. 
The thirty-seventh annual report of the proceedings of the 
Illinois State Horticultural Society has been issued by the Secre¬ 
tary, A. C. Hammond, of Warsaw, Ill. The volume includes 
reports of the proceedings of the Central and Southern district 
societies, and contains 432 pages of valuable information for the 
fruit grower and the nurseryman. The president of the state 
society is Henry Augustine, of Normal, 111., who is also president 
of the American Association of Nurserymen. The Illinois society 
is one of the most important in the country. 
