THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN. 
129 
THE NATURAL METHOD. 
Thousands of Acres In Missouri and Arkansas Planted with 
Stub-root Trees—Persistency of Mr. Stringfellow in the Face 
of Indifference —He Applies the Piece-root Graft Principle 
to Two.year Trees, or Older — Observations by Luther 
Burbank and Professors Green and Waugh. 
Editor National Nurseryman : 
Thanks for the friendly notice in your last issue, all the 
more appreciated because such recognitions of the plain truth 
have been few and far between, in the otherwise progressive 
Eastern States. Missouri and Arkansas are planting thousands 
of acres after the natural method, many of their wide awake 
growers having demonstrated fully that a stub-pruned tree is 
practically a seed; and a large majority of these orchards will 
be put to grass and mowed, keeping the ground clean a few 
years immediately around the trees. 
That even long-rooted trees, handicapped with large holes, 
will succeed in grass in your section also, is proved by the 
following testimony of Prof. Green of Ohio, who thus talks 
in your neighbor, Charles Green’s, Fruit Grower: 
“ Last summer (a year ago) his attention was called to an 
orchard planted in an old pasture. Instead of plowing the 
ground, large holes were dug. Sheep continually kept the 
grass clipped short. The fruit in that orchard endured the 
drouth better than in any cultivated one”. Substitute‘‘small” 
hole for “large”, and mowing machine for sheep and you have 
the New Horticulture demonstrated. The large holes cut no 
figure, for nobody is fool enough to suppose the trees confined 
their roots to them, and if they could penetrate the walls of a 
2 or 3-foot hole, why not just as easily those of a 2 or 3-inch 
one ? 
In this connection I will say that it was with much pleasure 
I read Prof. Waugh’s report on plum growing, also in your last 
issue, in which he testifies to the value of close-root pruning. 
He says: 
“ The scions were made about five inches long. The stocks 
were piece-roots of the usual length, about four to five inches. 
An excellent growth was secured from the grafts in this ex¬ 
periment.” Of course there is no reason to doubt that, if a 
clean piece of root could form a union and make a good tree 
in one season, the same tree taken up in fall and cut back to 
five inches top and four to five inches straight root as before, 
would do equally as well. As a matter of fact, that is precisely 
what I advise for one-year tap-rooted trees, and just the kind 
of tree that did so well in my driven orchard alluded to by 
you. 
To call this the “ Stringfellow ” method is absurd. I have 
simply applied the piece-root principle to two-year or older 
trees, which can be cut back to a straight three, four or five- 
inch clean root if the tree has a strong one. If not, then cut 
all lateral roots back to one inch or less. That this will be 
equally successful is proved by Mr. Luther Burbank, of Cali¬ 
fornia. A few years ago he wrote me as follows: 
Santa Rosa, Jan. 8, 1896 . 
H. M. Stringfellow— 
Dear Sir—From my own past experience, I believe you are right. I 
have used for years a one-inch root and five-inch scion for root grafting, 
and strange to say, in an experiment ten years ago, to test the matter, I 
used one-inch roots with five-inch scions, and from the same lot of roots 
and scions some three-inch roots and three-inch scions. In the long row r s 
thus under test, I could see no difference (apple and pear) in the stand, 
but in the case of the pears, the shorter roots produced the largest and 
best trees. Apples were nearly alike. 
Your truly, Lutiier Burbank. 
Now with the testimony of such eminent men as Professors 
Burbank and Waugh to the value of stub or close-root prun¬ 
ing and Professor Green to the value of non-cultivation, for 
the life of me, I can’t see how your Eastern growers can remain 
so indifferent to methods which would save them such a vast 
amount of labor and expense, from the setting of the tiee to 
the gathering of the fruit. 
And yet in answer to an article I sent Mr. Charles Green of 
the Rochester bruit Grower, on these subjects, some time ago, 
he wrote me that the people up there w'ere not interested in 
these matters, and returned the article without publishing. I 
regretted this very much for I have taken his paper many 
years, and consider it as an all around fruit journal, the very 
best in the United States. It strikes me that Mr. Green owes 
it to his readers to try and awaken an interest among them to 
these important subjects and might start his missionary work 
by publishing this article, endorsed as it is by the leading 
authorities. Other progressive journals should do the same. 
Lampasss, Tex., Nov., 1900. H. M. Stringfellow. 
HORTICULTURAL SOCIETIES. 
Annual meetings of horticultural societies will be held as 
follows: Missouri, Farmington, December 4-6; California, San 
Francisco, Decemb; r 4-7; Minnesota, Minneapolis, December 
4-7: Vermont, Brandon, December 5-6; Ohio, Troy, Decem¬ 
ber 5-7; Iowa, Des Moines, 11—13; Illinois, Champaign, De¬ 
cember 11 — 13; Indiana, Indianapolis, December 18-20; Penn¬ 
sylvania, Philadelphia, December 18; Maryland, Baltimore, 
December 20-21; Kansas, Topeka, December 27-29; New 
Jersey, Trenton, January 3-4; Peninsula, Middletown, Del., 
January 9-11; Wisconsin, Oshkosh, January 14-17; Rhode 
Island, Providence, January 16; South Dakota, Sioux Falls, 
January 22; Western New York, Rochester, January, 23-24; 
West Virginia, Charleston, January 29; Northwest Fruit 
Growers, Portland, Ore., February 5; Massachusetts Fruit 
Growers, Worcester, March 13-14; Oregon Board of Horti¬ 
culture, Portland, April 8. 
.STATE NURSERIES IN HUNGARY. 
In an article on horticulture in Hungary, the Gardeners’ 
Chronicle, London, says: 
In 1897 , the Hungarian Minister of Agriculture, M. I. Daranyi, 
created a special department for the direction of affairs relative to hor¬ 
ticulture generally, and to fruit culture in particular. This department 
includes two inspectors, and two traveling instructors. The establish¬ 
ment of state nurseries was another exceedingly wise and helpful 
movement, the object being to decide which were the most suitable 
fruits for particular districts; the varieties selected were cultivated in 
these state nurseries, and propagated in large numbers. There are 
twenty-two establishments of this description in various parts of the 
country, occupying an area of 219 hectares. One of the largest of these 
nurseries is at Torda, where the annual output of grafted trees is placed 
at 400 , 000 . The prices are fixed by the Minister himself, and range 
from about sixpence to eightpenceeach for halfstandardsand standards, 
as the case may be. Last year nearly a quarter of a million grafted 
fruit trees were gratuitously distributed, chiefly to the peasantry. 
