86 
THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN 
claimed are that a large portion of the fruit can be gathered 
from the ground, thus saving time and labor, another thing 
is the trees being low, are less exposed to strong winds, and 
fruit hangs on better than when the trees are high in the air. 
The reduced labor of picking the fruit seems to be the chief 
claim in favor of low leaded trees. We should think however, 
that an argument against this would be the increased difficulty 
of cultivation, especially after the trees had attained a con¬ 
siderable size and width. 
Monroe, Mich. The Greening Bros. Nursery Co. 
IOWA. 
NO SPECIAL CHANGE. 
Editor National Nurseryman. 
As to low-headed trees these days. I know of no change in 
doctrine or practice regarding the shaping of young trees by 
nurserymen or orchardists for the last quarter century at 
least. About thirty-five years ago there was considerable 
talk in the West about very low headed trees. Some advo¬ 
cated the planting of orchards headed just above the surface 
of the earth. It was argued that in-as-much as many trees 
suffered injury in the trunk, a tree with no trunk would be 
better, for it would escape such dangers. In practice it was' 
shown that the trees having no flexible stems split down at the 
ground and so failed. Then the practice was to prune nursery 
trees about twenty-four to thirty inches, sometimes a little 
more, and that, practice has not, so far as my experience and 
knowledge go, been changed in any wise during the last 
quarter century. I see no reason to suppose it will be changed 
in the upper Mississippi valley. 
Des Moines. C. L. Watrous. 
KANSAS. 
LOWER HEADS IN DEMAND. 
We are not advised as to the situation in the East in regard 
to low headed trees. There has been a change in the West, 
however, and low-heacled trees are usually preferred for plant¬ 
ing. To meet this demand, we are heading trees somewhat 
lower than we did a few years ago. In the West, especially, 
outside of river bottom districts, there is more or less strong 
wind to contend with, and the injury to fruit is not so large 
from that cause where low-headed trees are planted. The 
fruit also of course from these low headed trees is more easily 
gathered and that which falls to the ground is not bruised so 
bad. We believe trees of this nature are the best, at least 
for this section of the country. 
Topeka. L. R. Taylor & Sons. 
NEBRASKA. 
LOW HEADS RULE. 
The West early learned that the high heads of nursery 
trees shipped from the East were very liable to sun-scald. 
We have nearly always in our twenty-five years business here 
cleaned up our blocks at two years and the heads of these 
although lower than three year trees are quite high enough to 
suit our trade. These trees are generally preferred on ac¬ 
count of sun-scald and are less affected by the high winds. 
If a high headed tree should get a list to the North here it is 
almost sure to become worthless. 
Beatrice. J. A. Gage. 
CANADIAN PRACTICE. 
A CLEAR STATEMENT. 
Editor National Nurseryman. 
We do not know why it is, but as a rule farmers 
desire to secure tall trees. It may be that they find it easier 
to work around such trees with horses, but we cannot under¬ 
stand what other reason they could have for desiring stock 
of this nature. We believe that the nurserymen in Canada 
grow their trees taller than the nurserymen in the States, as 
quite often when we have had to import stock from America 
growers it has proved unsatisfactory to some of our customers, 
owing to its being headed in so low, while in every other way 
the stock would be of prime quality. Of course, nurserymen 
all over the country much prefer low heads. It does not 
take so long to produce a tree and then there are other good 
reasons why trees of this nature should be grown. 
In the first place, trees that are tall and have slender trunks, 
which is almost sure to be the case, are more apt to be blown 
out of line in the rows by severe winds and storms than lower 
headed trees. It takes a year or more longer to produce 
these tall trees and quite often as a result of being left in the 
nursery row this extra time, the trees become stunted. This 
is certainly evident, and we can point to instances in our 
immediate neighborhood where trees of this nature have been 
purchased and they have never made a satisfactory growth 
since they were planted out, and they never will. 
In the second place, fruit is more easily picked from low 
headed trees than from tall trees. It is but a few years since 
all the peach trees through this section were allowed to grow as 
tall as they desired and you know yourself that as a consequence 
of this the bearing wood of the peach trees would be simply up 
to the ends of the branches and that the lower parts of the 
limbs would be completely naked of any growth. Conse¬ 
quently, in order to pick peaches trees one had to carry a step 
ladder and sometimes a longer ladder, and it took a great deal 
of unnecessary time to harvest the peach crop. Of late all 
peach growers in this territory are heading their peach trees 
in every spring and keeping the growth down, so that the 
greater part of the crop can be picked without the use of 
a ladder at all. 
In the third place fruit that is almost matured dropping 
from the trees to the ground is not so apt to be injured when 
dropping from these low-heacled trees. We know that often 
pears that have dropped from dwarf trees have been brought 
in to us and have passed as first class stock, simply because 
it was not bruised at all, while pears which fell from standard 
grown trees and were caused to fall by the same wind or storm 
were so injured and bruised that they were practically worth¬ 
less. 
There are other reasons that could be given for desiring 
low headed trees. 
We find that the growers in Nova Scotia complain more 
about the height of a tree than Ontario growers do, but we 
think that this is simply because they really do not know 
what constitutes a first grade tree and instead of considering 
the roots and branches they look altogether to the trunk 
of the tree, thinking that that should be as straight as a string 
and free from blemishes, and look as if it had been turned 
out by machinery. They do not seem to take into consider¬ 
ation the fact that within a very few years they would not be 
able to tell whether the tree were straight or crooked when 
planted. 
We trust that this information will be of some value to you. 
Winona, Ontario, Canada. E. D. Smith. ■ j 
