44 
THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN 
Our American mountains are denuded, and on this ac¬ 
count the streams are drying up to the detriment of the 
lower lying country. Our country roads which should 
act as windbreaks for the farming land are barren and our 
private places are in horrible condition. 
What we need is trees, trees of all description by the 
millions to fill the places of the fallen and we need them 
badly and can not wait until a few protectionists get 
good and ready to grow them for us. 
My friends the nurserymen do not need to be afraid, 
Holland has no idea of 
sending war ships to smoke 
the President out as they 
did in Venezuela and the 
Holland nursery men have 
no intention to do any harm 
to Rochester, or any other 
nurserymen but are only 
coming over to supply your 
wants. 
It is a very dear idea of 
protectionists that by bar¬ 
ring imported trees and 
Conifers that they may be 
able to sell to their custom¬ 
ers something else that they 
have. That may be right 
in some instances but as a 
whole it is a dangerous 
theory and my friends bet¬ 
ter take notice. 
Some of the largest pos¬ 
sessors of estates are be¬ 
ginning to send their own 
representatives to Europe 
to buy from the nurseries 
direct, and if that increases 
the nurserymen will be out 
of the profit they w r ould 
make otherwise from this 
deal and this may create 
a condition that will cause 
the European nurseries to 
open retail departments 
right under their noses. 
It is bad enough as it is 
now that they let the department stores get the best of 
them and earn a nice profit that really belongs to the 
nursery trade. 
P. L. OuWERKERK. 
Weehawken, Heights N. J. 
GROWING APPLE SEEDLINGS IN FRANCE. 
Orlando Harrison, Berlin, Md. 
1 he special object of my visit to France was to make a 
study of the methods employed by French growers in the 
propagation of apple seedlings. In order to make the in¬ 
vestigation as effective as possible, before starting, I cor¬ 
Orlando Harrison in a Bed of Apple 
France. 
responded wfith various experiment station officers in this 
country, asking for suggestions in regard to the particular 
type of inquiry I should carry out. These suggestions were 
tabulated, and my examination of the seedling industry 
was to that extent materially systematized. The results of 
my findings may be briefly formulated as follows: 
1. Apple seedlings are growm from mixed seed of crab 
and cider apples. The only restriction placed upon the seed 
is that it be plump and sound. 
2. The climate of the apple seedling region in France, 
w^hich lies mainly in the 
valley of the Loire River, 
is particularly favorable. 
There is no great extreme 
of heat or of cold. This 
uniformity is conducive 
to regular well-ripened 
growth. 
3. Soil is well adapted 
to cultivation of plants. 
It is deep, alluvial, bottom 
soil, with a considerable 
degree of natural sub-irri¬ 
gation. An embankment 
controls the River Loire 
making much of the nur¬ 
sery land almost on a level 
wfith the water and some¬ 
times below when the latter 
is high. 
4. Labor is cheap, effi¬ 
cient, because these men, 
women and boys work in 
the nursery fields in fami¬ 
lies, and generation after 
generation. The type be¬ 
comes ingrained and in a 
measure hereditary. In 
this way little overseeing 
is required and much of 
the expensive part of 
direction is obviated. 
5. Apple seedlings usu¬ 
ally follow a potato crop, 
and it is found that the 
soil will not continue to 
grow seedlings for a few years. On the contrary, when a 
good crop is taken from the field, it is rested by growing 
other crops on it for several yeais before it is again planted 
to apple seedlings. 
6. The apple seedlings are transplanted from the seed 
beds to the nursery row. ' While this is expensive from the 
standpoint of labor, yet it insures an excellent root system, 
gives each plant proper and sufficient space for develop¬ 
ment, and therefore reduces the amount of the poorer 
grades. 
7. Growth is comparatively slow, for the growing sea¬ 
son is long, and this permits the wood to ripen thoroughly 
in the autumn before the digging season arrives. The 
Seedlings. Lebreton’s Nurseries, Angers, 
Aug. 1908 
