Se aera 
RA CE TN ES a 
1 June, 1900.] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 493 
the crops without manure, and thus impoverish the soil, as when the citrus trees 
come into bearing they will require all the plant food they can get, and not a 
worn-out soil, if you want them to make a good growth and produce heavy 
crops of fruit. 
Having the land ready for planting, the next question is, What are you 
going to plant? And this at once opens up the very debatable matter in the 
merits of seedlings and worked trees, which I will endeavour to deal with as 
clearly as possible. 
Wuar ro Prant. 
A large number of growers pin their faith to seedlings on the grounds that 
they are Vecutieg less liable to disease, and more reliable in every way than 
worked trees. Past experience has undoubtedly shown that, in the majority of 
cases, seedlings have been the most satisfactory trees to grow both as regards 
the health of the trees and of the quality of the fruit; but this, in my opinion, 
is largely, if not entirely, due to the fact that, until quite recently, the bulk of 
the worked trees were either budded or grafted on unsuitable stocks, principally 
the common lemon, which were entirely unsuited to our soils and climate. 
Many thousands of worked citrus trees have been imported during past seasons 
into this colony from New South Wales, practically the whole of which were 
on common lemon stocks, and have in consequence turned out a failure here. 
The failure of these trees is to a great extent rospenae for the preference so 
commonly given to seedlings, as not only haye the trees done badly, but the 
fruit they haye produced has been in many cases inferior to that of seedlings. 
The production of this inferior fruit is due to the fact that the scions from 
which the trees have been grown have been obtained from trees of little value 
instead of from choice selected varieties of proved merit. 
Although seedlings have many good qualities, they have also many bad 
ones. ‘hey are usually very thorny, and are dense growers, requiring heavy 
runing. 
i They are more or less uncertain bearers, having a good crop one season 
and little or none the next. The shape, size, and quality of the fruit are uneven, 
and there is no certainty of propagating any particular type. Some of our seed- 
lings produce undoubtedly first-quality fruits, but a large number are decidedly 
inferior, and all have the drawback of containing a considerable number of 
seeds. 
Worked trees, when budded or grafted on suitable stocks—viz., the sweet 
orange seedling for sweet oranges, and the emperor or scarlet mandarin seedling 
for mandarins, the seeds producing sweet stocks being obtained from fruit 
grown on vigorous, healthy seedling trees—are fully as hardy as seedlings, and 
have many advantages over them. 
Worked trees of the best selected varieties are usually free or nearly free 
from thorns; are vigorous growers, but not as dense as seedlings; come into 
bearing early, and bear heavy crops of fruit annually. The fruit of each variety 
is nearly all of the same type, and generally fairly even in size. In some varieties 
itis quite seedless, and in others nearly so, and the quality of all the selected 
varieties is good. When a grower has a particularly fine seedling that he wishes 
to propagate—either an orange or mandarin—the best way is to plant the 
seeds of same, and; when the seedlings are large enough, to bud them with wood 
taken from the same tree, as this will secure plants having a sound constitution, 
and enable him to produce fruit similar in every respect to that grown on the 
parent tree, whereas seedlings from same could not be depended upon to come 
true to type. Although worked trees have turned out such a loss and 
disappointment in many instances, there are cases of old worked trees growin 
side by side with seedlings that are equally as vigorous as the seedlings, ‘ant 
have proved themselves to be much more reliable and constant bearers, and 
decidedly more profitable in the long run. This experience is borne out by 
mas ears in all parts of the world, and seedlings are the exception and not 
the rule, 
ul 
