34 
THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN, 
The National N urseryman. 
C L. YATES, Proprietor. RALPH T. OLCOTT. Editor. 
PUBLISHED MONTHLY BY 
The National Nurseryman Publishing Co., 
305 Cox Building, Rochester, N. Y. 
The only trade journal issued for Growers and Dealers in Nursery Stock of 
all kinds. It circulates throughout the United States and Canada 
OFFICIAL JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF NURSERYMEN. 
SUBSCRIPTION RATES. 
One Year, in advance, - $1.00 
Six Months, ------- .75 
Foreign Subscriptions, in advance, - - - 1.50 
Six Months, “ “ 1.00 
Advertising rates will be sent upon application. Advertisements 
should reach this office by the 20th of the month previous to the date of 
issue. 
Payment in advance required for foreign advertisements. 
Drafts on New York or postal orders, instead of checks,are 
requested. 
Correspondence from all points and articles of interest to nursery 
men and horticulturists are cordially solicited. 
Entered in the Post Office at Rochester, 
N. Y., as 
second-class matter. 
Rochester, N. Y., 
April, 
1896. 
SIGNS OF PROGRESS. 
In these days of financial depression and low prices it 
is a pleasure to note the signs, which are everywhere 
about us, of success in special and general lines of horti- 
cutural work. We say everywhere about us, and is this 
not true? For while in many places marked success may 
be upon a comparatively small scale, it is still a means of 
encouragement. 
With the exception of the intro uction of novelties 
about many of which there clings from the beginning a 
suspicion of doubtful merit, there have lately been few 
developments to attiact general attention to the progress 
of horticulture. But the recent publication of the radical 
methods practiced by H. M. Stringfellow of Galveston, 
Tex., in the culture of fruit trees is one of the indications 
that in horticulture there are latent surprises which cause 
it to rank with other sciences in which the last days of the 
nineteenth century are producing wonderful results. Pro¬ 
gressive nurserymen are familiar with the principles laid 
down by Mr. Stringfellow for the treatment of roots of 
fruit trees in transplanting, to which reference has been 
made in these columns. Recently this well-known horti¬ 
culturist has been photographed with samples of trees 
“ before and after treating” in his hands, and this photo¬ 
graph preaches a sermon more plainly than can words. 
In his right hand he holds a stump of a young tree 
scarcely more than a foot in length, the roots trimmed to 
within an inch or two of the top. In his left hand he 
holds by its center a pear tree whose branches extend far 
above his head. 
In a communication to The NATIONAL NURSERYMAN 
Mr. Stringfellow says: “ The tree in my left hand was 
grown in one season from one exactly like that in my right . 
It was planted in nursery row with trees on both sides, on 
ground broken only four inches deep and drawn up into 
a slight ridge. The soil was black, waxy, with hardpan, 
pipe clay subsoil. The main cane was eleven feet and had 
to be broken down for photographing. Many roots were 
broken in digging and the lower ends were as large as 
wheat straws, showing a probable penetration as deep as 
the top was high.” 
Mr. Stringfellow says that nurserymen and horticul¬ 
turists are sceptical regarding his proposition, but he is 
confident that time will prove its truth. He says: 
I could give the experience and endorsement of quite a number of 
orchardists who have practiced this method with uniform success, but 
space will allow me to mention but one. He stands on the topmost 
round of the horticultural ladder, and as far as I know is the only man 
whose mind is so unbiased by the prejudice of preconceived opinions, 
and his perceptions so intuitively correct, that as as soon as the method 
and reasons for it were presented, he saw its truth. Without waiting 
for the slow demonstration of experience, he at once put it in practice 
on his great 900 acre peach orchard of 100,000 trees, which he was 
about to plant in Georgia. I wrote him recently as to how it turned 
out. Here is the reply : 
“ Dear Sir: lam glad to state that the close root pruning, which 
was practiced when planting our entire orchard of one hundred thousand 
trees at Fort Valley. Georgia, proved to be the most successful opera¬ 
tion we ever practiced, less than one-half of one per cent, of the trees 
failing to grow, and all making the most vigorous and even growth I 
have ever seen in any orchard in America. The orchard is now three 
years old, and gave us an enormous crop of fruit this past season. I 
am thoroughly in favor of this system of root pruning. 
Yours very truly, J LI. Hale.” 
And now in conclusion, in view of the fact that my individual efforts 
for eight years have amounted to practically nothing, the question is, 
how to bring about in the general handling of trees this radical but 
needed reform. I see but two ways. The first through the medium 
of the nurseryman and his catalogue, and the second through the bul¬ 
letins of the experiment stations. 
Quite a number of nurserymen, some of them the most extensive in 
the Union, have written me that they are now practicing my method 
exclusively, and with perfect success, in all their nursery transplanting 
operations, but they dare not advise the people to adopt it for fear of 
being accused of trying to induce them to kill their trees, so as to sell 
them more next season. 
Mr. J. LI. Hale is the only exception I know in the whole country. 
He comes out boldly for close root pruning. Now let all the rest make 
mention of the subject in their future catalogues. Next let the state 
experiment stations make exhaustive experiments on all kinds of trees 
vines and .small fruits. 
And this introduces another shining example of success 
in horticulture. Our readers will pardon our allirsion 
again to the result of the operations of G. H. and J. H. 
Hale in the South. It is an experience from which all 
may profit. In a most attractive treatise on fruit grow¬ 
ing entitled “ From a Push Cart to a Trolley Car,” J. H. 
Hale, ex-pre-ident of the American Association of Nur¬ 
serymen, says: 
Coming from the busy whirl of our great Georgia orchard in mid¬ 
summer last—where day after day we had been sending out fruit, not 
by car-loads alone, but by whole train-loads in a single day—back to 
the home farm, here for months to continue picking, grading and 
loading thousands of bushels of luscious fruit daily, with electricity, 
that witch of modern times, stealing down over the wire at night to 
whisk the loaded trolley cars off to market and whisk back empty ones, 
