THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN 
311 
may be deficient in others. A tree bearing large apples might 
be unproductive, subject to fungi or insects, lacking in vigor or 
hardiness, or short-lived. Selecting for one quality will not do. 
The more qualities, the more difficult the tree to find and the 
more complicated is selection. 
Roeding: It seems to me this statement is too drastic and so 
negative in character as to the practical application of bud selec¬ 
tion that it creates a wrong impression in the mind of the read¬ 
er. That it is untenable is definitely answered by the experiments 
with the Improved French prune and other instances that might 
be cited. If what is said is accepted at its face value, we would 
have to concede that selection in fruits is surrounded by so many 
insurmountable obstacles that all effort to improve existing va¬ 
rieties is a waste of time. 
2. Hedrick: The selected buds must be worked, in the case 
of tree fruits, on roots that are variable. To have “pedigreed” 
trees it is necessary to have “pedigreed” roots as well as 
“pedigreed” tops. 
Roeding: Here we again bump against the expression “pedi- 
geed” trees, which is certainly misleading. As already explained, 
bud selection is something different. Professor Hedrick is too 
sincere a worker in behalf of better things in horticulture to be 
accused of not believing in the betterment of our fruits. All this 
talk about “pedigreed” trees is bunk. What he fears is that nur¬ 
serymen will use the word “pedigreed” as an incentive to induce 
their customers to buy something which they (the nurserymen, 
know is not what they represent it to be. In other words, they 
are attempting to foist something on the public which is supposed 
to be superior, while as a matter of fact it is nothing of the kind. 
3. Hedrick: It is the experience of those who have taken 
buds from bearing trees that the resulting nursery plants lack 
vigor, and remain weaklings for several years. 
Roeding: I have been cutting buds from record bearing trees 
consistently for over 35 years, and I can say truthfully that trees 
so grown, on coming into bearing, have stood the test sufficently 
to verify the truth of the statement that bud selection does per¬ 
petuate type and character of fruit and bearing cap .city of the 
tree from which it was cut. There are other nurserymen in Cali¬ 
fornia who have followed along the same lines with similar ex¬ 
periences. 
4. Hedrick: If pedigreed trees become the vogue, tree-grow¬ 
ing must become a petty business. Climate and environment 
would permit nurserymen who are growing pedigreed stock to 
propagate only a half dozen varieties of any fruit. Not more than 
this number of sorts is so pre-eminently adapted to any one geo¬ 
graphical region at to give good mother trees. 
Roeding: The word “pedigreed,” as applied to trees, should 
be eliminated from the nurseryman’s vocabulary. To place bud 
selection in the discard would be an admission that we should 
be satisfied with what we have and not attempt to improve vari¬ 
eties to not only meet varying soil and climatic conditions, but to 
better quality and yield of fruit. 
5. Hedrick: Fruit trees are not sufficiently well fixed in their 
characters to make selection from single “best” trees worth while, 
even should their characters be transmissible. Thus, trees in 
many cases do not show their best attributes until late in life 
or, to the contrary, fail as they grow older; or are affected for 
better or worse by moisture, food, or physical conditions of soil 
in certain seasons; or insects and fungi may give them a variable 
and uncertain standing. A nurseryman with the best intentions 
might thus propagate from a prepossessing tree only to find later 
that he and his customers had been deceived. 
Roeding: The view expressed may arise from facts applying 
to an orchard in the Eastern States, but certainly would not be 
borne out by experiences in connection with orcharding in Cali¬ 
fornia. If, to illustrate my point, we were to continue to cut 
buds from the Improved French prune orchard (which has been 
under my observation for so many years) when the trees showed 
signs of deteriorating, it would be retrogression and almost a 
crime; but, on the contrary, if we cut our buds from the progeny 
of the original trees which, by the vigor of their growth, the 
size and quality of the fruit produced, show that they are worthy 
successors, we would be doing a real service to the fruit indus¬ 
try, and at the same time elevate the nursery business. 
6 . Hedrick: Veritable variations can be told only by grow¬ 
ing the parts bearing them-—by studying the offspring, not the 
ancestor; by looking forward, not backward. This is impossible 
in the nursery. In conclusion, the burden of proof is upon those 
who advocate pedigreed trees, for the present practices of pro¬ 
pagating fruit plants are justified by the precedents of centur¬ 
ies. Experimenters in this field encourage us to believe that 
they may sometimes illumine the darkness, but one cannot see 
by the lights they have thus far brought. “The assertion that 
outstrips the evidence is a crime” in this case, as in any other. 
Let us have real, precise, abundant evidence before demanding 
a reform that will revolutionize nursery practices. 
Roeding: Too tue; but forget the past? Let us not for a 
minute wrap a mantle around ourselves and blindly set aside 
the honest purposes of anyone trying to put more virility in our 
trees, enhance the quality by increasing the pulp and lessening 
the pit in stone fruits, by creating better types and larger yield¬ 
ing capacity, by fixing desirable types in product, and robust, 
sturdy trees, or any other good quality that will render orchard¬ 
ing more profitable. 
The only guide that we can judge the growing tree by is its an¬ 
cestry. We do maintain type in many economic plants by the 
process of budding and grafting; and we do (to a considerable 
extent) maintain quality of fruit and bearing capacity of record 
performance trees by limiting our bud supplies to only such 
specimens. The only way that this is feasible is to study the 
host tree (ancestor) from which the bud is derived, with a 
view to reproducing the same character in the nursery tree, sub¬ 
ject to more or less ' modification by the after treatment and 
environment it may be subjected to when planted in orchard 
form. Conditions being to its liking, the selected bud will carry 
to a noticeable degree the commercial value of the tree from 
which the bud was cut. More than this can hardly be expected 
under the elemental conditions to which all plant life is sub¬ 
jected. 
BLOCK OF APPLE TREES COMING ONE YEAR FROM GRAFTS PLANTED IN MARCH 1923. AND PHOTOGRAPHED 
SEPTEMBER 20, 1923, AT BUNTINGS’ NURSERIES , SELBYVILLE, DELAWARE 
