THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN. 
Iln Common Council. 
Editor National Nurseryman : 
Your excellent paper visits us once regularly a month and we 
are glad to see it come. Business has been fair and the spring 
demand for trees increasing. More attention is being paid to 
orchards than usual. The winter has been very mild so far, 
but the grip has caught the most of our people. 
A new Rambler rose originated in our grounds year before 
last ( 1899 ). It is a sprout of the Polyantha rose Mignonette 
and only those who know and appreciate that unique and 
beautiful little pink rose can appreciate this, with its immense 
clusters of perfect little pink flowers. This is certainly des¬ 
tined to be a favorite when known. 
With best wishes for the success of our paper in the new 
century. 
Plain Dealing, La. L. T. Sanders. 
APPROVES ITS POLICY. 
Editor National Nurseryman : 
Enclosed find $ 1 . Can’t do without the Nurseryman. 
Glad to see your caution about captious legislation affecting 
our fruit interests. At the bottom of most all these strenuous 
laws may be found some very small interests. 
Referring to the discovery of the “ Praying Mantis,” as 
noted in your January number, page 145 , I beg to say this in¬ 
sect has been very common in Texas for more than forty cen¬ 
turies, and this may be the cause of our immunity from San 
Jose scale and all the other destructive insects so common in 
many states. It is more probable that this great discovery is 
like many other fearful things which we read about, and which 
result from disordered stomachs or exploded exchequers. 
I beg to remark that Texas is all right financially and every 
other way. Full blossom to the Nurseryman. 
McKinney, Texas. E. W. Kirkpatrick. 
[The common species of mantis, confined to the Southern 
states, referred to by Mr. Kirkpatrick, is Phasmomantis 
Carolina. The specimens found in Rochester were genuine 
Mantis religiosa, common only in Europe, Africa and the 
East. — Editor.] 
PROPAGATION OF PLUMS. 
Editor National Nurseryman : 
Prof. F. A. Waugh’s experiments in propagating several va¬ 
rieties of plums on different stalks, as given in the November 
and December numbers of the National Nurseryman, are 
interesting, but to my mind, these experiments would have 
been much more important and useful, and, no doubt, would 
have given quite different results, especially in the case of the 
peach as a stock for the different sorts of plums used in the 
experiment, had they all been budded on seedling stocks, in¬ 
stead of whip-grafted on pieces of roots four or five inches 
long, as stated. We should have expected the grafts, set on 
pieces of peach roots, to make the poorest showing. Besides, 
budding is the usual way of propagating plums in most nurs¬ 
eries ; therefore, it would have been better to work them in 
that way. No doubt, all strong-growing varieties of plums 
would be best grown on their own roots. By grafting such 
varieties, using long scions on pieces of roots, and planting 
deeply, when once established, they ought to make the best 
trees; but it would take at least a year longer to produce a 
if >3 
tiee of the usual marketable size in that way, as compared to 
budding on strong stocks. 
We prefer the peach as a stock for Japanese plums to any 
other that is now available in sufficient quantities. Our best 
trees in the orchard are those on peach stocks, while those on 
Marianna stocks are not doing well, many of them dead or 
dying. We are using also Wild Goose and Reed (Wayland 
group) for stocks for the Japanese and the hydrids, such as 
America and Gonzales, and find that they all do exceedingly 
well, they have made a strong, even growth on good soil, and, 
with a favorable season, they make trees plenty large enough 
for sale in one year from the bud. 
The Wild Goose, not being self-fertile, the seedlings are 
nearly all crosses with Miner, Reed, or Golden Beauty, as 
trees of these sorts are growing near them. Without good 
polinating sorts near them, there would be but few plums to 
gather from the Wild Goose trees. Another stock we have 
found to be very good for the Japanese plums, is the seedling 
of DeCaradenc. The only objection so far noticed is that it 
is too uneven in growth ; in fact, quite a large percentage of 
the seedlings are entirely worthless, being extremely dwarf in 
habit, while those that are strong are just the reverse, being 
extra vigorous, and there are but few of medium growth. 
Curious points worth noting are that those very dwarf seed¬ 
lings are all so uniform in appearance and manner of growth, 
being of a low, spreading growth pall have very brittle wood 
and very thick bark. If Prof. Waugh or any of our scientists 
could tell us the cause of this great variation and these curi¬ 
ous dwarfs, we should be pleased to hear from them, or to 
have them call on us and examine them. Before the advent 
of the Japanese plums in our orchards, the DeCaradenc trees 
bloomed profusely every year, but produced little or no fruit, 
the blossoms not being selfffertile. Since the Japs, which 
bloom at the same time, have come into bearing near them, 
they have borne profusely, but the plums are all ruined by the 
cherry maggot. These seedlings are doubtless nearly all 
hybrids with the Japenese plums. A few, however, show un¬ 
mistakable signs of having been'hybridized with the apricot. 
These have not been budded. They would be what Mr. Bur¬ 
bank calls “plumcots ” of some sort, no doubt. 
Another very curious thing about a few of these seedlings 
is their very close, upright habit and very persistent leaves. 
From the window we can now see three small trees, still in 
full leaf, appearing like young evergreens in the distance, 
while all the other stocks and nursery trees shed their leaves 
long ago. 
Having noticed that Northern Spy trees are often recom¬ 
mended as stocks for top-working other sorts on, we con¬ 
cluded to try seedlings of the Northern Spy for that purpose. 
We see no reason why these seedlings would not retain 
enough of the characteristics of the Northern Spy to be 
equally as good as the Northern Spy trees worked on 
mixed seedlings. They certainly would cost less, and per¬ 
haps would prove fully as good, or better. For the purpose of 
testing them we collected some seeds from Northern Spy apples, 
whidh usually have plenty of good plump seeds, used for dry¬ 
ing and in our family last fall and winter. These seeds were 
sown last spring and we now have several thousand pure 
Northern Spy seedlings. We, however, cannot use one-half of 
them for our own planting. If any nurseryman or experiment 
station would like to try them in small quantities we would be 
pleased to hear from them. Levi Bell. 
Sparkill, N. Y., Dec. 18 , 1900 . 
