THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN. 
9 
had things pretty much their own way and they have re¬ 
cently taken steps to keep pace with changes which 
threatened to interfere with their prosperity. Hereto¬ 
fore prices for southern fruit were high because the de¬ 
mand exceeded the supply. But during the last year or 
two the supply has been increased enormously by the 
activity of large growers, especially in the case of peaches, 
and methods for marketing the crops systematically be¬ 
come necessary. Such methods will be devised by the 
Georgia Fruit Growers’ Association and the result will be 
of interest to fruit growers in other sections where the 
need of organization is manifest. 
THE CAUSE OF THE TROUBLE. 
In a symposium on the agricultural depression, the 
Country Gentleman quotes James Wood, ex-president of 
the New York State Agricultural Society, as follows : 
We may expect a long and severe contest, that will result in the sur¬ 
vival of the fittest. Intelligence and persevering energy will be the 
winners. Loose, slovenly, old-time methods must be abandoned, and 
science must be united with practice as never before. Fortunately for 
the farmers of the State of New York they can stand this tight for ex¬ 
istence better than any others in the country, but many of them will of 
necessity go under. Our agriculture is more diversified than any other 
in America, almost more than any other in the world. We have more 
strings to our bow, we draw from more sources, we have great interests 
with which the fountain of the West does not directly compete. Our 
orchards, vineyards, wine-presses, hop-yards, bean fields and apiaries, 
have no competitors there until we reach the Pacific slope. Our close-at- 
home manufacturing and commercial populations require vast amounts 
of near-by-grown products, and our dairies, creameries and cheese 
factories have many advantages of great value. We may take heart 
where others despond, but when the jubilee of prosperity will come 
again no man living can foretell. 
One of the editors of the Country Gentleman says : 
If the agriculturists of the United States would cease rain-bow chas¬ 
ing and devote themselves unitedly to demanding, with one voice, and 
as the one demand on which they are unanimously agreed, that not 
another acre of arable or irrigable land belonging to the government 
shall be sold or given away or permitted to come into cultivation or 
grazing use under any pretence, they would work the one great reform 
which would bring them prosperity. 
THE LOW PRICE QUESTION. 
Editor of The National Nurseryman : 
I hope the following suggestions will find room in your 
journal and improve like fruit on good ground. Your dis¬ 
cussions in the journal last year about advancing to sales¬ 
men were worth the price of the journal alone. But let us 
not stop yet on this subject of low prices. How can the 
trouble be remedied? Nurserymen should be more care¬ 
ful as to whom they send their low prices, retail or whole¬ 
sale. Let them first look in a directory, or in the Na¬ 
tional Nurseryman to ascertain whether a person is a 
nurseryman, a planter, or a grower, an agent or a dealer. 
There are agents who for only one season sell dear new 
varieties at very low prices and then deliver old cheap 
varieties for them, not true to name. 
Then again many postal cards are hurting honest prices 
by being sent to different parties where there are too 
many agents, just as if every farmer were in the trade as 
soon as he can graft some trees, or give sprouts to other 
farmers. 
Directories are inaccurate. For instance, nurserymen 
can save postage by knowing that A. Cooper, What 
Cheer, la., and A. Cooper, Coal Creek, la., only four 
miles away, are the same. 
Henry Schroeder. 
Sigourney, la. 
CULTIVATION OF THE APPLE TREE. 
Professor L. H. Bailey in a talk on orchard manage¬ 
ment, at the recent meeting of the Ohio Horticultural 
Society said that he thought apple orchards would be 
profitable in the near future, as other fruits were being 
planted almost to the exclusion of apples. 
Apple orchards occupied the land for a long term of 
years, and received little manure, while commercial 
orchards of other fruits received annual dressings. 
Possibly the propagation from non-bearing trees for a 
series of ears has something to do with the barrenness 
of many orchards. Prof. Bailey was not going to take 
any chances in this direction but was planting two year 
Northern Spy, these to be top-grafted from extra pro¬ 
ductive bearing trees. He knew of a Fameuse tree in 
Southwestern Michigan, which had borne annual crops for 
twenty-five years. Another tree of some o her variety in 
Massachusetts was equally productive, and he was to 
have scions of both varieties. It was very likely, how¬ 
ever, that soil exhaustion had much to do with non-pro¬ 
ductive orchards. 
It had been found necessary to give nursery ground a 
rotation in grain and clover between each two crops of 
nursery trees, the soil being completely exhausted of ele¬ 
ments of tree growth and humus in from four to five 
years. If this was the case with nurseries, what should 
we conclude about orchards after standing for twenty, or 
thirty, or forty years? 
The nurserymen of Western New York were using a 
three-foot drill and sowing Crimson clover in nursery rows 
the last of July to be cultivated under the following 
spring. This gave some nitrogen and considerable humus, 
besides holding the rain water. 
Why did he use Northern Spy for a stock to graft 
upon, and were top-grafted trees more productive than 
root grafts? Well, in answering the first, he could only 
say that he didn't know except that everybody used the 
same under similar circumstances. It was a vigorous, 
strong, healthy grower, straight and well adapted to the 
use. It seemed the best for the purpose. Top-grafted 
trees were, as a rule, more productive than root-grafted, 
but just why was difficult to answer. 
In private or amateur renewal of tops by grafting, the 
scions were generally taken from bearing trees, but where 
the work was done by professional grafters, this could not 
always be said. 
