THE NEW
HORTICULTURE

H. M. STRINGFELLOW

GopyrightNo.

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT:

THE NEW HORTICULTURE

H. M. STRINGFELLOW

THE NEW
HORTICULTURE

BY
H. M. STRINGFELLOW

PUBLISHED BY

FARM AND RANCH PUBLISHING COMPANY —
DALLAS, TEXAS

1906

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OCT 14, lyu8

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COPYRIGHT, 1896
By H. M. STRINGFELLOW .

COPYRIGHT, 1906
By FARM AND RANCH PUBLISHING COMPANY

Mount Pleasant Press
J. Horack MCFARLAND COMPANY
HARRISBURG * PENNSYLVANIA

DEDICATION

ITH feelings of the deepest appreciation for their in-
valuable services in behalf of the New Horticulture, I

now dedicate this new and revised edition. First, to
Farm and Ranch, the only journal in the whole country
that nearly twenty years ago opened its columns to what all
others considered the visionary ‘‘pipe dreams” of a crack-
brained enthusiast and declined to publish, thereby affording
me opportunity to present these great natural horticultural
truths, and save them from perishing from off the face of the
earth.

Second, to Thomas L. Brunk, then professor of horticul-
ture at the Texas Agricultural and Mechanical College, the
very first man to whom I confided them, who at once recog-
nized their inestimable value, and the next year verified a
part of them at the Maryland Experiment Station, to which
he had been called, and from which he was discharged for
wasting his time and issuing a bulletin on such wild vagaries.
Disgusted at such blind prejudice, he embarked in another
line of business successfully.

Third, to E. W. Kirkpatrick, the nurseryman and public-
spirited citizen, whom all Texans love to honor, who was
not only equally prompt to see these great truths but at once
put them into practice, recommending them also in his cata-
logue to his customers, and boldly advocating them in public.
To those three, the fruit-growers of the world owe a lasting
debt of gratitude; but for them, they would still be in the
bondage of that trio of horticultural tyrants, the plow, the
cultivator and the pruning knife, who with their prime minis-
ter, the little bacterial devil, ‘‘ brown rot,” have from time
out of mind levied a tribute upon their earnings that far sur-
passes in amount the fortune of a Rockefeller.

H. M. STRINGFELLOW.

CHAPTER

Jt
EE

CONTENTS

The New Dispensation
Old Primitive Orchards

. How I Discovered Close Root-pruning

. Close Root-pruning

Right and Wrong Close Root-pruning

. Best Time and Depth to Plant

. Deep Preparation Wrong

. Cultivation

. Growing Trees from Bearing Ones

. Winter Budding

. Grafting

. Why Trees in Bottoms Never Drown
. Grapes

vuihe Apple

.| Khe Pear’ .

. The Plum

. The Peach

. Apricots, Figs, Japan Persimmons and Nuts
. The Strawberry and Other Berries

. A Review

(vii)

PAGE

vies

Vill CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE
XXI. Effects of Cultivation . : : ; ‘ 93
XXII. Blight, and Other Tree Diseases. : - £03

XXIII. Pruning, Insects, Fertilizing and Influence of
Scion on the Stock : : é 2 113

XXIV. Tree Breeding and Origination of New Fruits. 120

XXV. Gathering, Marketing and Storing Fruit . 126
XVI. The Pecan d : A : : ; Seat)
XXVII. Conclusion . ; : : ‘ : : 141

CHAPTER?’ I:

The New Dispensation.

N presenting the second part of this volume to the atten-
tion of the fruit-growing public, I do it with a feeling cf
confidence that the time is ripe for a new dispensation of

horticultural truths, and while they may, with their novelty,
startle from their sleepy routine many of the high priests who
minister around the altars throughout the country, the kindly
reception awarded them in this section is an earnest of their
general adoption everywhere in the near future. The public
now demand the best of fruit, and they want it cheap. The
day of high prices has probably gone forever, and it is a
doubtful question whether fruit-growing, with the short-lived,
unproductive, diseased and insect-ridden trees of to-day, and
their uncertain crops, now pays.. To practice the most ad-
vanced methods (taught by Mr. J. H. Hale, for instance, on
peaches, and by others on apples, pears, etc.) requires an
expenditure that is often not even covered by the receipts.
The amount of extra nurturing, coddling and special petting,
sometimes called ‘intensive handling,” in the way of cultiva-
tion, pruning, thinning, fertilizing and spraying, to make pay
an orchard grown from three- or four-year-old, long, fibrous-
rooted trees, is appalling ; and when we contrast it with the cer-
tain, cheap and easy-going style in which the twenty-year-old
Rambo apple tree, mentioned in the last chapter of this vol-
ume, brings in the dollars, we may well cry, ‘‘Hasten the good
time when all fruits can be thus grown!” That is the mis-
sion of this gospel of the ‘‘New Horticulture” I now advo-
cate, which, though nominally new, is really as old as the
morn in spring in the long, long ago, ages before Eve plucked
and Adam ate the apple, when the warm sunbeams kissed the
dew from the first modestly opening fruit blooms, whenever
that was. Its principles, from which we have now wandered

(1)

2 THE NEW HORTICULTURE.

so far, to our great loss, are identical with those practiced
from the beginning by wise Mother Nature. With lavish
hand she scattered the seed that fell upon the solid earth,
and produced trees after their kind, from which, down through
the puzzling maze of ages of evolution and the survival of
the fittest, where her original forests stand, she now presents
to our admiring gaze majestic evidences of her skill. To illus-
trate those principles is the main object of this book. Plain
as they are, I stumbled over them for years, like the rest
of the horticultural world, blind to the patent fact that in all
their peculiarities of growth and treatment, both fruit and
forest trees arethesame. They are both the result of specific
conditions and surroundings. No fostering hand of man,
with friendly cultivator, spade or plow, was present during
the millions of years of their evolution, to kindly aid in their
struggles with climatic adversities the sturdy monarchs of
the forest, which from the frigid to the torrid zone, in slowly
changing cycles of climate, have crowned the rocky hills and
mountains and covered the broad valleys with their sheltering
boughs. So they have, through succeeding generations,
adapted themselves perfectly to their environments by the
survival of the fittest, and from age to age found in the firm,
unbroken virgin soil, with no disturbance of their surface
roots, the conditions best suited to their perfect development.
The same law applies to fruit trees as well.

Perhaps, if our horticultural scientists had their way, and
through successive generations of like-minded descendants,
could but grow fruit trees for a million or so years more, con-
tinuously from long-rooted ones, on ground subsoiled and
deeply pulverized, they might ultimately, like nature, evolve
a race of trees that would prefer and thrive best on such a
soil, and fruit perhaps as well as Mr. Pierce’s Rambo apple
tree, alluded to hereafter, or live as long as the old Seckel or
Sudduth pear. But the trees we now have to deal with
retain too much of the perversity of their wild parents not to
kick at such treatment. The experiments recounted later on,
of Mr. Patterson and the squirrels, and the stunted pear trees
in my Hitchcock orchard, on a muck bed, with two feet of

THE NEW DISPENSATION. 3

rich surface soil beneath them, prove this beyond all doubt.
Seeing, then, that they foolishly reject our efforts in their be-
half, why not, as it costs so much less, and the trees produce
so much more and finer fruit, indulge them in their long-time
preferences. However, before entering my plea for this
course, I will in a short digression make some remarks: rst,
on the old primitive orchards of our forefathers; and, also,
2d, give a short account of how I happened to hit upon the
great fundamental principle of all entirely succcessful horti-
culture, that the nearer we can bring a transplanted tree to
the form of a seed, the better it will be for the tree, as will
be seen by the following recent extract from Farm and Ranch:

While viewing the path of the recent tornado that swept
through the city of Sherman, Texas, destroying scores of precious
lives and happy homes, I noticed the effect of the force on the trees.
Some trees were uprooted, some snapped off above ground, some
stripped of limbs and bark and others were twisted into splinters.
One large post oak, about two feet in diameter, was splintered and
twisted like a huge rope. A large apple orchard was uprooted, and
I searched in vain for a tap-root on any of those apple trees. They
had the appearance of being planted with long roots and tramped
into a small hole, with the point of the roots near the surface where
they remained and continued to grow. The soil was rich, sandy loam
on deep, rich, moist clay. The forest trees were large and strong, and
most of them refused to be uprooted and were snapped off. Had
these trees been planted so as to induce the growth of strong tap-
roots, evidently they would have been larger, stronger, healthier and
more fruitful.k—E. W. KIrRKPATRICK.

CELA PAR «LI:

Old Primitive Orchards.

HERE is no more interesting subject for investigation,
a nor one that has puzzled observers more completely,
than why we are unable now to grow as healthy, long-
lived and productive fruit trees as our forefathers. Many
and various have been the theories advanced, but the most
general one seems to be that in the early settlement of the
country the vast forest area had a mysterious and potent in-
fluence on climate and tree diseases, and that the gradual
clearing of the land has, somehow or other, changed condi-
tions so radically that fruit trees in general, and certain
varieties in particular, no longer succeed as they formally did.
Where once in the eastern states the apple and the pear
attained the giant proportions of forest trees, now, as a
rule, they crouch and cower in valley and on hill, their
puny, stunted, blighting offspring a pitiful burlesque, in
many instances, of their grand old sires.

I came across a statement a few days ago, that in 1721, a
small ‘‘settlement of forty families near Boston made three
thousand barrels of cider, and another New England village
of two hundred families made ten thousand barrels.’’ Pre-
sumably they reserved fruit enough for all domestic uses,
fresh and dried, and this vast amount of cider was simply
from the surplus fruit. Remembering that those were days
of small family orchards, not of thousands of acres like we
now plant, can we anywhere find a parallel in productiveness
to-day? The trees that gave those enormous yields were
presumably either seedlings, root grafts or grown from small
one-year maiden trees, with few roots when set, except the
tap, and those doubtless cut off not far below the surface.
The nurseryman, with his large, fine, three and four-year-old,
long, fibrous-rooted trees, like those now sold, had not yet

(4)

OLD PRIMITIVE ORCHARDS. 5

appeared upon the stage to captivate those rustic growers
with visions of early fruit. And while on its face there may
seem to be some show of reason in this theory of climatic
change as the cause for all this acknowledged inferiority and
decay, yet when examined in the cold light of statistical
climatology and actual experience, it crumbles, a baseless
fabric, to the ground. The records, from the earliest times,
show no material change in average temperature or rainfall
between then and now, and we still have, here and there, all
over the country, strong, vigorous and productive old seed-
ling trees, like the Sudduth pear in Illinois, and the Arkansas
Mammoth Black-Twig apple, which show beyond all doubt
that in certain places, and under certain conditions, it is still
possible to grow apple and pear trees fit companions to those
of long ago, and which tower among the fruit trees of to-day,
like Saul among his brethren, head and shoulders above them
all. These hale old mementos of by-gone days are living
witnesses against the theory of climatic change, for C. M.
Stark, of Missouri, in American Garden of January, says:
‘«The original Mammoth Black-Twig apple tree is still stand-
ing near Rhea’s Mill, in Washington county, Arkansas, and
bearing fruit, and at the recent meeting of the State Horti-
cultural Society of that state, at Fayettville, there was an ex-
hibit of apples from this tree labeled, «M. B.-Twig, from the
original tree, sixty-five years old, two feet eight inches in
diameter 214 feet above the ground.’’’ And yet, just across
the state line in Kansas, the well-known king of apple grow-
ers, Mr. Frank Wellhouse, the owner of 1,200 acres of trees,
plants sixteen feet apart in the rows, because in twelve or
fifteen years he finds that his long-rooted, well sprayed and
cultivated trees, standing on thoroughly prepared ground,
cease to pay.

These being some of the facts in the case, what is the true
answer to the New York Legislature’s call last year for infor-
mation as to the acknowledged decadence of modern orchards,
especially the apple? It will not do to talk apologetically, in
explanation of repeated crop failures, about the great number
of fungous enemies, late frosts, dry seasons, chilling winds

6 THE NEW HORTICULTURE.

and cold, wet weather at blooming time, as if all those con-
ditions did not prevail in the ‘‘Auld Lang Syne” as well as
now. Hear what Mr. S. F. Alberger, in a recent issue of the
Orange Judd Farmer, has to say about the conduct now of
some of these old-time apple trees: ‘‘ The apple trees that
pay best now in Western New York are from sixty to one
hundred years old. I think it is because their branches sel-
dom intersect, and their roots run deep into the soil, and dur-
ing our customary dry fall weather, supply to the fruit buds
not only moisture, but the kind and quality of food neces-
sary to give them the vital power required to perfect the fer-
tilization of the flowers and the setting of the fruit the next
spring. I think the lack of vital force in the buds is one
great fault in our commercial orchards of to-day. In many
of these orchards, if the trees are dug up, it will frequently
be found that they have no tap-roots at all, but the roots
start out at almost right angles, and in some cases are
found, at fifteen to twenty feet from the trees, to be only six
inches or a foot below the surface. Some of these trees
showed decay at the center of the trunk; in three cases,
where the trees had been grafted, it could be seen between
the layers of yearly growth from six to twelve years after
planting, but the trunks of a twenty-two-year-old seedling and
several seventy-five-year-old seedlings that were limb-grafted
do not indicate any decay. Does the insertion of the graft
or scion into the crown cause this delay ?”’

Verily, Mr. Alberger is hitting very close to the truth, in
his diagnosis of the commercial orchards of the present day,
grown from large, fibrous and long-rooted trees. But to an-
swer the interrogatory of the New York Legislature more fully
as to this well-known decadence, let us go back to the time,
several hundred years ago, when there were no orchards in
America. When the Mayflower glided alongside of Ply-
mouth Rock, folded to rest her white wings, that for many a
long, weary day and night had breasted the Atlantic’s gales,
and from her deck the Pilgrims stepped in search of new
homes, we know that they brought seeds, including fruits of
various kinds, and when settled, from time to time imported

OLD PRIMITIVE ORCHARDS. Wi

more. But for many years, in fact generations, compelled,
as they were, to battle with the elements and Indians, and
clear forests, little attention could have been paid to fruit-
growing, except in a small way for individual use, and every
one doubtless propagated for himself, by the old and well-
known method of root-grafting, or from seed, where the trees
were to stand. It is afair presumption, indeed, that anything
like a commercial nursery was then unknown, friends and
neighbors performing such kindly offices as budding and graft-
ing for each other without pay. This continued, doubtless,
for many generations. In fact, up to the beginning of the
present century there were practically no nurseries at all, and
the institutions of this description that are so common now
all over the country really date back scarcely more than fifty
or seventy-five years. But as more and more attention was
given to fruit culture, naturally people here and there would
grow trees for sale, and many seasons would doubtless have
an over-supply. Not wishing to lose them, these would be
transplanted once or more, to check growth and keep them
from getting too large, and intending purchasers, seeing such
big, fine stock, in their desire and haste for immediate bear-
ing, and encouraged by the honest but mistaken nurseryman,
would naturally purchase these large trees, in preference to
the small ones; and, indeed, if treated right, a two or three-
year-old tree, or even one five or six years old is equally as
good, and will fruit sooner than a younger one. But the
trouble was, then as now, that right treatment was not under-
stood, and in order to preserve a large part of the handsome
tops, which the customers of course desired, the nurseryman
naturally advised retaining as much as possible of the long
and fibrous roots, the result of transplanting once or more.
And thus it gradually came about, that there grew up an aris-
tocracy of root, and when dug and graded in the fall, the
value and price of the stock was largely determined, just
as it is now, by the size and quantity of the roots. I
doubt, indeed, whether there is to-day (April 2, 1906) a
nurseryman in the whole country who has not numbers of
fine trees of all varieties that by accident have been dug

8 THE NEW HORTICULTURE.

with short roots, for which he will cheerfully take half price.

But to return to our immediate forefathers and their doings
in the fields of horticulture. Naturally, in very dry seasons
or in case of neglected trees, set with large tops, the tangled
mass of feeble, fibrous roots would fail to take hold in the
soil, and, exhausted by evaporation from the tops, would die.
Then at once went up the cry, ‘‘More root!” Why not?
Taught to believe that roots were absolutely necessary, nat-
urally the planter would conclude, the more the better, just as
is taught in all the books to-day; and indeed, so firmly is it
fixed in the minds of many of our most eminent fruit grow-
ers that, though earnestly requested to do so, they will not
even plant a single close root-pruned tree as an experiment.
This has for several years been my general experience, in try-
ing to inaugurate this all-important reform. And yet it is
absolutely the foundation of all permanent success in the
orchards of the future. We have now got toa point where a
small one-year tree is considered worthless, and it is well-
nigh impossible to sell a tree that has not been transplanted
once, and oftener twice, to give it plenty of roots, and when
such trees are planted, with all their matted fibrous roots, the
doom of that orchard is sealed, whether it be with blight and
scab in the pear and apple, yellows in the peach, or black-
knot and root-tumor in the plum and peach. Such orchards
are bound to fail early, become diseased, and die. And so, in
tracing the probable course and progress of horticulture in
this country from the earliest times down until now, we find
that of necessity, commencing with seedlings and root-grafts
(practically my method), its whole history has been a descent
from health, longevity and productiveness in the beginning,
as history and tradition both prove, down to disease, early
decay and unfruitfulness at the present time, and in an exact
and direct ratio to the increased quantity of roots left on,
and age of the trees when set. The older the tree and the
more root, the worse for the tree ever afterwards. Just how
I happened to discover this important truth will be told in
the next chapter.

CHAPTER T1f-

How I Discovered Close Root-Pruning.

important, without a single exception, in the whole

science, and the foundation of all permanent success,
it is most astonishing that men have stumbled over it almost
daily from the beginning, and never realized its value. The
ordinary root-graft has been the most common form of prop-
agation for most fruit trees for time out of mind, and every
nurseryman knows what superior trees can be thus grown in
a single season. And yet it has never occurred to any one to
say: If a small piece of root will make such a fine tree, why
will not the same principle apply the second or any other
year afterward ? Just how the value of this method did first
present itself to me is as follows: Nobody here having any
faith in the success of my venture of pear planting, I found
it impossible at first to sell but few of the trees I had grown
from cuttings, but having hopes that the astonishing vigor
and thrift of my orchard would start a demand, I dug the
young trees for several years, and transplanted to keep them
from getting too large, as they surely would, judging from the
way the orchard was doing. So we opened wide furrows and,
spreading out the pear tree roots evenly, according to the
universal directions, covered them nicely and firmed the
ground well. Being an old market-gardener, though a new
nurseryman, and a believer in manure, as already shown, I
gave the rows of young trees a good dressing of cotton-seed
meal, and with fair cultivation, at the end of the year I had
no cause for complaint, as they all did well. But even that
early I had caught on to the fact that, for some unexplained
reason, the cuttings planted at the same time as the rooted
trees always averaged much better. Moreover, another great
point in their favor was, that when we came to pack the few

(9)

\ S this principle of horticulture is absolutely the most

10 THE NEW HORTICULTURE.

trees | did sell, being green at the business I found a world of
trouble to make the clumsy, flat-rooted ones from the young
trees agree with one another and lie comfortably in the same
bundle. Having been planted with quite long ones, they were
entirely lateral-rooted when dug. But the trees grown from
cuttings, while they gave us a world of trouble to get out
with the regulation amount and length of root, when we
came to pack, were regular daisies—roots all long, deep and
straight, and as easy to pack as sardines in a box. The
third year I had extraordinary luck, and grew about seven
thousand trees from cuttings. Having again sold only about
two thousand, I found quite a job on my hands late in spring,
as we had waited, hoping some purchaser would come along.
But he did not, so we had to tackle the transplanting job
again, and at the same time look forward to next year’s pack-
ing of those roots, if sales turned out good. I remember well
standing before the row where the trees were all nicely heeled
in, with the buds ready to leaf out, and my only help, Frank,
a colored boy, at my side, who had just as little fancy as I for
the job. After holding a council of war for awhile as to the
best and easiest way to get all those roots under ground, and
Frank had actually gone down once with the plow and was
coming back on the furrow, throwing the dirt out, the idea
occurred all at once in the form of a self question. Some-
thing seemed to say: ‘‘If those trees grew so well with no
root at all, what’s the matter with cutting them all off, and
letting them try it over again ?’’ No sooner thought thaa
settled. Frank was within fifty feet of me coming back, and
when he got there I astonished him by saying: ‘‘Now go
back and throw the furrow together again,” and told him of
my idea. Without a moment’s hesitation that colored boy,
Frank Bell, caught on to the whole thing, saying, ‘‘ Good,”
and started back on the row. And yet I have been writing
and urging fruit-growers for the last eight years just to
try the method, even on a single tree; but so thoroughly
had the long-root idea incorporated itself into the mental
machinery of most of them, that until the last year or two it
has been in vain. I laid the whole subject in a most exhaust-

HOW I DISCOVERED CLOSE ROOT-PRUNING. Il

ive article before the American Pomological Society five years
ago, at Washington, which, if it was ever read, certainly pro-
duced no other result except perhaps to stamp me as a wild
and woolly Texas crank!

But to return to my story. We pitched in, and in short

order had the whole
five thousand trees
reduced back to cut-
tings again, at least
in appearance, for
we did not stop at
any half-way close-
pruning, like thou-
sands will who try it
with fear and doubt.
We both agreed that
it was a plain case
of no need for root
at all, and off they
came, as close to the
ends as we could cut
them, for our inten-
tion was simply to
stick them back in
the rows as cuttings,
after reducing the
tops to one’, foot.
And we treated the
whole five thousand
just that way. If
a single tree died, I
never saw it, and by
fall those rows pre-
sented a picture of
vigorous and even
growth, many trees

TREE IN RIGHT HAND GROWN IN ONE YEAR FROM
ONE LIKE THAT IN LEFT HAND.

being eight to ten feet high, like the tree ] hold in my hand in
the illustration, though the root-pruned tree in the other hand

107 THE NEW HORTICULTURE.

has twice as much root as those had. But what shall I say
of the great, deep, penetrating roots they had struck! The
tree I hold shows exactly the character of their root system,
though it has several large roots broken off in digging from
the hard-pan pipe-clay subsoil, and the photograph by no
means does justice to the size of the ends of the roots next
to the floor, which were from the size of a knitting needle to
a wheat-straw, showing plainly they had gone far deeper. In
fact, I am confident that could all of that tree’s roots have
been taken up, the extreme length would have been as great
as the top, which had to be bent and broken down for photo-
graphing, and measured eleven feet. I wish particularly to
emphasize the fact that this tree was grown on stiff, black,
waxy soil, broken about four inches deep, having a hard-pan
yellow pipe-clay subsoil, that positively defies a spade. And
yet we find pages in the books about the absolute necessity
for a deeply plowed and subsoiled bed for trees, to enable
their roots to take hold, forgetting that hard and soft are
relative terms, and ground as hard as a rock to us is as soft
as butter to a close root-pruned tree.

But a little more about that lot of trees. By this time
people began to talk and investigate, and wild rumors of fab-
ulous Le Conte pear crops and profits over in Georgia found
their way over here. That fall.I sold nearly every tree I
had, and, having found out this easy method of planting, I
hastened to spread the glad tidings, as well as to ‘‘ butcher”
the tree roots in digging. Frank had a weather eye for an
easy job, and when I said, ‘‘ Dig with short roots,” he was
quick to obey, and we hustled them out in a hurry. But
when I came to deliver, I found that I had made a big mis-
take, for talk as eloquently as I would about the virtue of
short roots, and with the trees in my hands to demonstrate
its truth, I actually had several parties refuse to buy, and had
to guarantee nearly all I did sell to grow. This wound up
my efforts as a close root-pruned tree propagandist for some
time, and while knowing they were worse than useless, to my
great disgust, I was compelled to dig with all the roots pos-
sible. In fact, so disheartening were my efforts for a number

HOW I DISCOVERED CLOSE ROOT-PRUNING. 13

of years that if Prof. T. L. Brunk, then of our Texas A. and
M. College, had not, on a visit of several days to my home,
urged me so earnestly once more to bring the subject before
the public in the Southern Horticultural Journal, of which he
was the editor, and also in Farm and Ranch, it might have
rested until now. He saw the philosophy of the whole thing
at a glance when I pointed it out, and showed him the trees,
and afterwards, when connected with the Experiment Station
at Washington, he made the very exhaustive experiments, an
account of which is elsewhere in this volume. Had not per-
sonal and political motives succeeded in ousting him from
Washington shortly afterwards, this most enthusiastic and
progressive master of horticulture would, I feel sure, long
ago have succeeded in demonstrating, in the public position
he held near the capitol, the utility and vast superiority of
the close root-pruning over the long-rooted method.

CEA Pape 1X.

Close Root-Pruning.

ITH all our knowledge and progress in the other arts
\ \ and sciences, there is abundant evidence to prove that
in the science and practice of horticulture we have
retrograded so far that only last year the legislature of New
York passed a bill appropriating funds and authorizing the
Commissioner of Agriculture to investigate and determine, if
possible, the causes for the widespread decadence of the
orchards in western New York, both in the matter of the de-
creasing health and shortened life of the trees, as well as the
inferior quality and diminished yield of fruit. This investi-
gation is now in progress, and is awakening great interest in
the east. It is a well-known fact that all over the country the
same conditions exist that are complained of in New York.
While last year gave a phenomenal yield of fruit every-
where, it is the first for several years, and not likely to occur
soon again, and it is certain that the sturdy fruit trees which
delighted the eye with their grand proportions, and tickled
the palates of our forefathers with their regular and abundant
crops of fine fruit, are a thing of the past. Something cer-
tainly is wrong when apple trees cease to be profitable at fif.
teen years of age, and peach trees reach their prime in five and
die in ten or less, as they do nearly everywhere in our culti-
vated orchards, and yet old seedlings in fence corners, chicken
yards, old fields and around the back doors are standing up
cheerily under the weight of twenty or thirty years; aad Mr.
Hale himself drew his inspiration, when he embarked in his
successful career of peach growing, from a sixty-year tree
that stood in a neglected but friendly fence-row on his ances-
tral farm. That there are causes for all this, outside of
diminished fertility, want of care or fancied change of climate,
is certain.

(14)

CLOSE ROOT-PRUNING. 15

I will now enumerate the four probable causes which, from
a series of observations and experiments for many years, I am
sure are at the bottom of the trouble, and in so doing, will
confine myself strictly to facts, which anyone can verify for
himself.

1. I claim that the best form of tree for planting is
exactly the opposite of that recommended by all authorities
from time immemorial, inasmuch as the latter departs far-
thest from nature’s method of seed, which experience of the
past proves to be the best, and to which I claim my method
is superior. The close root-pruned tree, as shown in the
accompanying cut (page 21), struck several strong penetra-
ting tap-roots, instead of one, like a seedling, and sent them
much deeper, fully ten feet in a single season.

2. Iclaim that deep preparation of the ground, as now
recommended, is equally far from the truth and nature’s
method of a firm, unbroken soil, inasmuch as such deeply
pulverized ground, after excessive rains, even though well
drained, will for several days become a bog, to drown and
scald the young rootlets in summer and freeze them to death
in winter at the North.

3- That all cultivation of trees after several years,
when the feeding roots hunt the surface, is wrong fer se, inas-
much as all trees depend upon these surface roots for the
proper development of the fruit, both as to size and quality,
and any cultivation must necessarily be destructive to them.
Of course, when first planted, the middles can be utilized for
several years without serious injury, for growing crops be-
tween if desired; but from the very start, except a space
around each tree large enough to prevent damage from the
mowing blade, frequent and close mowing through the grow-
ing season, leaving the clippings on the ground, is the best
plan for all close root-pruned trees, with annual fertilizing to
perfect the crop. But please take notice that I do not rec-
ommend this treatment for poor, handicapped, three and
four-year-old, long, fibrous-rooted trees, if planted as they
come from the nursery.

4. That all fall, winter and spring pruning, until after

16 THE NEW HORTICULTURE.

the trees are in full growth, is contrary to nature and common
sense, in that it, as well as fall, winter and early spring
stirring of the ground tends to break our trees’ rest and
start a premature motion of the sap.

These four fundamental principles of successful horticul-
ture are in perfect accordance with nature and experience, as
demonstrated by all forest trees, as well as old chance seed-
lings of all fruits everywhere, and constitute the ‘‘ New Hor-
ticulture’’ I now advocate. To these four points, and my
internal theory of all species of tree bacteria, and the causes
of their development in the forms of yellows, blight, root-
tumor, scab, black-knot, etc., I invite the earnest attention of
fruit-growers everywhere, and a full, exhaustive, friendly crit-
icism. I am wedded to no theory, or bound by no prejudice,
but simply follow where I think truth points her finger.

As to my theory of inherent bacteria, whether it be right
or wrong, it is a matter of small moment, provided I have
shown that a close root-pruned tree, if treated rationally, will
never afford the conditions for the development of any of
those bacterial diseases, and in this I think I have succeeded.
And now to the first cause, which I claim to be a radically
wrong form of tree when set.

THE REVOLUTION IN TREE PLANTING.—It is about eight
years since I first announced in Farm and Ranch that the
theory and practice of tree planting, as handed down from
time immemorial, was wrong, and that, instead of the more
roots a tree has when reset the better, the very opposite was
true. I then gave a full history of how I happened to hit
upon this truth, as well as a detailed account of various ex-
periments upon a great many kinds of fruit and shade trees,
that demonstrated beyond all doubt the truth of my state-
ment. I also adduced many isolated facts from the experi-
ence of others going to corroborate my own.

So absurd did the idea of cutting off all the roots of a
tree seem even to very many prominent horticulturists, that
though I then wrote to quite a number all over the country,
the invariable answer was: ‘‘ While such treatment may suc-
ceed with you, it would be out of the question here.” The

CLOSE ROOT-PRUNING. 17

fact is, we inherit our opinions and ideas just as well as the
peculiarities of our bodies, and so true is this that the con-
trary of their beliefs is positively unthinkable to many men.
An instance of this came to me ina letter from one of our
most progressive Texas nurserymen. He wrote: ‘‘I have
been practicing close root-pruning with perfect success for
some years, and yet my father, who is seventy years old, and
sees the good results every year, won’t admit them, but persists
in saying that ‘if the roots were not necessary they wouldn’t
be put there. So firmly, indeed, has this long-root fallacy
become imbedded in the human mind by ages of practice,
that even a man of Chas. Downing’s eminence in horticulture
declares in his great work that the ‘‘ideal transplanting”
would be to take up a tree with its roots entire. That this
would be absolutely the very worst form, anyone can easily
demonstrate for himself. Let him take, for instance, two
peach or other tree seeds, and plant a few inches apart in,
say a ten-inch pot of good, rich soil. At the end of next
year, let him take them out and carefully shake off all the soil
from the roots, and plant side by side in the open ground.
Let him spread out in a large hole all the roots of one tree,
according to the inherited regulation method, and cut back
all on the other to about one inch, and the top to one foot,
just enough to allow of its being stuck down about six inches,
like a cutting. Treat alike, and in two years the root-pruned
tree will be many times larger than the other. And right
here I wish to say, very particularly, that the great superior-

399

ity of close root-pruning is not always so apparent the first
year, the tree giving more attention to striking deep roots
than making top. Even for several years, we all know that
trees as ordinarily set do well, but this is due to the fact that
a large amount of root is removed even then. But a com-
parison with these will prove that when the strain of fruit-
bearing comes, the close-pruned tree, with its roots deep and
strong, out of reach of the plow, winter’s cold and summer’s
heat and drouth, will stand up for many years, giving good
crops, long after the other, with its lateral and surface sys-
tem, has broken down and died. How else are we to

18 THE NEW HORTICULTURE.

account for the early decadence of our latter-day orchards ?
The planter, in his haste for fruit, demands big trees, with
plenty of roots and top, to support which, and to make them
live, the nurseryman often transplants several times. This
gives a mass of fibrous roots, which will undoubtedly, if the
season is good, make the trees live, but practically dwarfs
them and destroys their future usefulness. While Samson
lost his strength by cutting off his hair, a tree is forever
weakened by leaving its ‘‘hair’’ roots on when set, for it
seems then compelled to re-establish itself by emitting new
fibrous roots entirely from these. This results in a perma-
nently lateral and surface system. Sink a spade around such
a tree a year, or even two, after planting, and a slight pull
will lift it from the ground, but a short root-pruned tree will
resist any effort. The whole theory of the latter method is
simply copying nature. She starts her trees from seed with
neither tops or roots, and universal experience has shown
that these, and trees grown from cuttings (which are prac-
tically seed), if never moved, are the strongest, healthiest,
longest-lived and most productive. The advantages I claim
for this method over the all-important one of giving far
better trees are:

1. An enormous saving to the nurseryman in digging
his stock, which now must be taken up with roots a foot or
more long.

2. An equally great saving in packing. Instead of
great bales of tops, roots, moss, bagging and rope, and the
labor of putting up the same, or large boxes containing thou-
sands of pounds of the same useless dead weight, a thousand
root- and top-pruned trees could be packed in a medium-sized
tight box, with a layer of wet moss in the bottom to main-
tain a moist atmosphere, and shipped with perfect safety
around the world.

3. The saving to the buyer will be even greater. As
an instance, several years ago I ordered five thousand grape
vines from California, and wrote specific directions for root
and top-pruning, as well as packing, and offered to pay for
the extra pruning, the box to be sent by express. The nur-

CLOSE ROOT-PRUNING. Ig

seryman, setting me down for a crank or fool, packed the
vines, top, roots and all, in three immense bales, weighing
1,300 pounds, for which he got a special rate, and yet they
cost me sixty-seven dollars charges. I pruned and packed
them in a single bale weighing 227 pounds, shipping them
250 miles, after which they were set by being simply stuck
down into shallow, pulverized ground and tramped, the whole
operation taking but two days. Every vine grew, and the
next summer, the third year, I expect to ship grapes by the
car load. It would be hard to estimate how many hundreds
of thousands of dollars are annually paid by planters to rail-
roads, in charges on worse than useless tops, roots and
packing.

4. Thousands of dollars will be saved in the plant-
ing. Instead of large holes, and spreading out of roots,
working in the soil by hand, etc., as now practiced, the
planter will prepare his ground, stretch a strong line, with
tags tied at the right intervals, make a small hole with a
dibble a couple of inches in diameter, stick the trees down
the proper distance, and when a row is done turn back and
tramp thoroughly. This is very important.

5. Another most important advantage is, that by this
method we reduce to a minimum the danger of spreading all
kinds of diseases and insect pests, such as eel-worm, root
tumor, scales, root-lice, etc. These are mostly found on
the tops or long roots.

6. It enables the planter to set extra-large trees, which
the nurseryman now has to throw away, and thus obtain
fruit much sooner.

I will now repeat directions for root-pruning. Hold the
tree top down, and cut all roots back to about an inch, slop-
ing the cuts so that when the tree is set the cut surface is
downwards. Experience has shown that the roots are gene-
rally emitted perpendicularly to the plane, or surface of the
cut. This final pruning should be done shortly before plant-
ing, so as to present a fresh surface for the callus to form on,
If trees are to be kept some time, or shipped by a nursery-
man, about two inches of root should be left, the planter to

20 THE NEW HORTICULTURE.

cut back as directed when the tree is set. About a foot of
top should be left. More or less makes no difference. If the
tree is well staked, three feet may be left without diminishing
the growth much. I have had six-foot trees, well staked, to
grow finely, but to avoid staking and to secure a new,
straight body, it is best to cut back short. Let all shoots
grow until a foot or so long, when the straightest and best
one should be left and all others rubbed off. I could give
the experience and endorsement of quite a number of orchard-
ists who have practiced this method with uniform success,
but it is necessary to mention only one. Without waiting
for the slow demonstration of experience, he at once put it in
practice on his great nine hundred-acre peach orchard of one
hundred thousand trees, which he was about to plant in
Georgia. I wrote him recently as to how it turned out.
Here is the reply:

Dear Sir: Tam glad to state that the close root-pruning, which
was practiced when planting our entire orchard of one hundred thou-
sand trees at Fort Valley, Georgia, proved to be the most successful
operation we ever practiced, less than one-half of one per cent. of
the trees failing to grow, and all making the most vigorous and even
growth I have ever seen in any orchard in America. The orchard is
now three years old, and gave us an enormous crop of fruit this past
season. Iam thoroughly in favor of this system of root-pruning.

Yours very truly, Je HORALE:

And now, in conclusion, in view of the fact that my indi-
vidual efforts for eight years have amounted to practically
nothing, the question is, how to bring about, in the general
handling of trees, this radical but needed reform. I see but
two ways. The first through the medium of the nurseryman
and his catalogue, and the second through the bulletins of
the experiment stations.

Quite a number of nurserymen, some of them the most
extensive in the Union, have written me that they are now
practicing this method exclusively, and with perfect success,
in all their nursery transplanting operations, but they dare
not advise the people to adopt it, for fear of being accused of
trying to induce them to kill their trees, so as to sell them
more next season. Now, let all of them make mention of the
subject in their future catalogues. Next, let the state experi-

CLOSE ROOT-PRUNING. : 21

TREE GROWN FROM A ROOT-PRUNED TREE GROWN FROM A LONG-ROOTED
ONE, AT END OF FIRST YEAR. ONE, AT END OF FIRST YEAR.

22 THE NEW HORTICULTURE.

ment stations make exhaustive trials on all kinds of trees,
vines and small fruits, planting some with mere stubs of roots,
half an inch, and others with five, ten, fifteen and twenty-inch
length, setting enough of each to allow of taking up some
every year to demonstrate at once that beyond a length of one
inch, the quantity and size of the new roots is invariably in
an inverse ratio to the amount of old roots left on. The
more and longer the old, the more lateral and weaker the new
ones. Let them subject trees of different ages and lengths of
tops, up to four or five years or more, to the same treatment,
and the result will be the same. The older close root-pruned,
even with four-foot tops, will, if staked, quickly re-establish
themselves on strong, deep, new roots and make fine trees,
while the same age long-rooted ones will become permanently
surface-rooted and dwarfed forever. But it is much better to
cut back the tops to one foot, and form an entirely new head,
as from a seed.

In planting an orchard of any fruit after this method, I
would most earnestly advise, even on ground thought to be
rich, that each tree be well top-dressed, AFTER BEING SET, with
cotton-seed meal, well rotted barnyard manure, or other fer-
tilizer, except fresh stable manure. But never put manure of
any kind, except plain bone meal, in the hole or around the base of
a close root-pruned tree, and see then that it is well mixed with
the soil. This fertilizing will force a strong initial growth,
and thus induce the trees to strike many and deep, perpen-
dicular roots, and if correctly root-pruned, as shown by the
tree I hold in my left hand in the cut, few or no lateral roots
will be emitted for several years, the trees confining their at-
tention entirely, by instinct, to anchoring themselves deep in
the moist earth, thus enabling them to resist any drouth, and
face unmoved the fiercest storms.. No wind can shake or
loosen the hold of a close root-pruned tree, no matter how
high the future head, or long the trunk. Such trees will make,
as they did for Mr. Hale, a perfectly uniform growth, and if
propagated from bearing trees, as all should be, will all come
into bearing at the same time, and mature to full size, with-
out thinning, crops that would paralyze trees planted with

CLOSE ROOT-PRUNING. 23

long roots. Of course, removing some of the smaller fruit
would somewhat increase the size of the balance, but all will
be large, and thinning might be necessary only to keep the
limbs from breaking. Give full distance between the rows of
all close root-pruned fruit trees, and run them north and
south, if practicable. Trees propagated from settled bearing
ones will fruit full the third year for peaches, apricots and
plums, and the fourth or fifth year for pears and apples, and
it will be economy to plant in the rows of the latter fruits an
extra tree between, to fruit for five or ten years, until those
intended to make the permanent orchard require the space.
Air and sunshine are necessities for bright, clean, high-col-
ored fruit, and shade breeds fungi, except on grapes, which
often thrive in it.

I append the following note of comment on the above
article by that prince of careful, painstaking originators,
whose name is known and honored wherever fruit is grown,
Mr. Luther Burbank, to whom I sent a copy at the time.

Santa Rosa, January 8, 1896.
H. M. STRINGFELLOw.

Dear Sir—Thanks for your courtesy in sending me your very val-
uable and thought-suggesting essay. From my own past experience,
I believe you are right. I have used for years a one-inch root and
five-inch scion for root-grafting, and, strange to say, in an experi-
ment ten years ago to test the matter, I used one-inch roots with
five-inch scions, and from the same lot of roots and scions some
three-inch roots and three-inch scions. In the long rows thus under
test, I could see no difference (apple and pear) in the stand, but in
the case of the pears, the shorter roots produced the largest and best
trees. Apples were nearly alike. I usually cut back very heavily,
but so far have not practiced such heroic treatment as you suggest.
But as I said before, think you are right, and shall test it here. If
it be true, what a grand result your studies have led up to, and in
any case can result only in good !

Sincerely yours,
LUTHER BURBANK.

CHAPTER: -V;

Right and Wrong Close Root-Pruning.

WISH particularly to call attention to the fact that the
| chief object in close root-pruning is to concentrate all
the vital energy of the newly set tree on a limited root-
surface. and compel it to strike several strong, perpendicular
tap-roots, and while doing this, not to allow its attention to be
diverted to forming side or lateral roots at the same time.
By examining the accompanying illustration, Fig. 1, it will be
seen that all seedling and transplanted trees should be cut
back close below the collar, and just under the first good side
roots, and not leave any length of the main or tap-root, with
side roots cut back, asin Fig. 2. Such trees will invariably
at once strike a great many lateral and surface roots also,
while the properly root-pruned tree will, the first season, con-
fine itself almost entirely to making strong, deep ones, with
perhaps less top, though the second year will always remedy
that. If the trees should be too large to root-prune with the
shears or knife, saw off the tops to fifteen or eighteen inches,
lay the tree on its side, and saw off all the roots squarely just
below the crown or collar. Trim the sawed edges with a
knife to make them callus more quickly. As stated else-
where, large trees can be treated thus, as six-year-old pear
and grape vines at Hitchcock are now fruiting, that have
renewed their strength like young trees, it being a general
law of nature that once a tree, especially an old one, is taken
from the ground, the old roots are an encumbrance, and its
former strength, vigor and health can only be renewed by
compelling it to re-establish itself, as before, on an entirely
new system.
And now, in answer to-many inquiries as to the size of
trees which may be successfully transplanted. If closely
root-pruned, there is scarcely any limit. While universal

(24)

RIGHT AND WRONG CLOSE ROOT-PRUNING. 25

experience has shown, beyond all doubt, that fruit trees and
grape vines over three or four years of age, if set with long
and fibrous roots, are inferior to smaller ones, the rule by no
means holds good with close root-pruned trees, for a very

I-YEAR OR OLDER ROOT-PRUNED TREE, JUNE-BUD OR SEEDLING ROOT-PRUNED TREE,

valuable and important point in close root-pruning is, that it
can be utilized to make living fence posts for newly enclosed
farms, fields or orchards. A china, cotton-wood, willow,
hackberry or sycamore, and, I presume other forest trees of

26 THE NEW HORTICULTURE.

large size, even six inches or more in diameter, can be dug,
all the roots cut back close to the body and tops to five or six
feet, and planted quite deep, just like a fence post, well ram-
med, and wire stretched, and every one of the trees named
will grow off quickly and make nice heads by fall, and large
trees the second season. Every orchard should have such a
windbreak around and through it at wide intervals. Not an
evergreen one, to keep off the cold, but a deciduous one, to
break the force of summer and fall winds, that every year
lash thousands of bushels of half grown and also ripe fruit
from the trees. I lost in a single storm, some years ago, over
two thousand bushels of pears, blown down in an hour and
buried in the mud. The cottonwood is by far the best of all
trees here for such a windbreak, as it grows very tall, and
will stand any storm, if grown from cuttings or root-pruned
trees. If care be taken to select cuttings from male trees,
the nuisance of seed and cotton will be avoided. I had at
Hitchcock two ten-acre orchards of Garber and Le Conte
pears, that were both bisected each way with cottonwood
when the pear trees were set, thus cutting each ten-acre lot
into four blocks of 2% acres, surrounded now on all sides
with tall trees, that let in the breezes for comfort, but com-
pletely break the force of driving summer winds, that would
blow off the fruit. In fact, to plant an orchard without
proper protection is pure gambling, as the Missouri and
Arkansas growers found out last fall. Car load after car load
of windfall Ben Davis and other apples were shipped here
last October, that had been whipped off by a strong wind
storm that swept those states. While the roots of such a
windbreak would be objectionable on vegetable ground, they
do no harm at all to fruit trees, if occasionally fertilized, as is
clearly shown in my orchards.

CHAPTER VE

Best Time and Depth to Plant.

AM afraid that many persons will make the mistake of
planting their close root-pruned trees too deep on level
ground, under the erroneous impression that, having

so little root, such a tree will find it difficult to establish
and sustain itself at first. If they will but reflect that the
root-graft and the cutting, which will strike, have no such
trouble, and that nature plants her seeds upon the bare sur-
face of the firm ground, and trusts to the wind, with leaves
and dust, and the rain, to splash a thin covering around or
over them, they must see that a strong, close root-pruned
young tree, with far more vital energy than a seed, cannot
fail to take care of itself, if set five or six inches deep in soil
at all moist and well firmed. Of course, if it be dry that
depth, the trees must be watered when set. But this applies
to sections of the country favored with a’ reasonably regular
rainfall, and more particularly to level and only slightly roll-
ing ground. On elevated uplands and hills, the depth should
be increased a little, and all through the dryer, hilly half of
our state, comprising West and Northwest Texas, a depth of
one foot would be none too much. Of course, this would
require a total length of eighteen to twenty-four inches of
tree when set. That deep planting is best all through the
latter portions of the state, with its rocky, limestone subsoils,
was clearly demonstrated by Wm. Cook, of Lampasas, one
of the most successful and observing fruit-growers I ever met.
I camped for a month near his orchard, in the suburbs of
Lampasas, fifteen years ago, and was told by him that the
finest, longest-lived and most productive trees of all kinds he
ever grew were planted two feet deep, right up on the rocky
hillside and top, and that he had practically drilled the holes
out of the almost solid limestone soft rock. A little top soil

(27)

28 THE. NEW HORTICULTURE.

was put into the bottoms, trees were set two feet deep, the
holes filled two-thirds with surface soil, and a bucket of water
to each hole, the weather having been dry for a long time.
After the ground had settled, the holes were filled level and
well firmed with the foot. The trees, of all kinds, not only
all grew, but no drouth afterwards even seemed to affect
them. The roots had necessarily been cut back quite short,
though he\new nothing of the virtue of the method. Of
course, such treatment would be ruinous on level or moder-
ately rolling ground with a clay subsoil. No amount of rain
can ever water-log the rocky, porous subsoils of West Texas
hills, and trees of all kinds should be planted at least twelve
inches deep or deeper, all through that section. The rich val-
leys should be avoided for fruit, not only because of occa-
sional excessive rains, that for a few days render them a bog,
but worse still, because such locations are so subject to late
spring frosts as to render crops too uncertain.

And now, as to the best time for planting close root-
pruned trees in the southern states. If asked the very best
month, I would say December. The young trees to be
moved have then gone completely to rest, and while the
ground is still warm enough to encourage root action, the air
is not sufficiently warm to stimulate a new growth of leaves
after planting, which often happens to trees moved in Novem-
ber, especially if from a more northern latitude. Still, Jan-
uary is nearly as good a month, and all through February
and March, up to the very starting of the leaves, if the soil
is moist, such trees may be planted with perfect success. But
they will not grow off as rapidly, or make as great a total
growth that season, as those planted earlier. At the North
and in the Middle States, as Prof. T. L. Brunk remarks else-
where in his article, if trees with so little root to hold them
down are set in the fall, especially on deeply pulverized soil
(a worse than useless preparation), there might be danger of
heaving from the action of frost. But that heaving could
easily be obviated by banking the earth up entirely over the
one-foot tops, thus protecting them the first season from the
cold, and mice and rabbits as well. The advent of hot

BEST TIME AND DEPTH TO PLANT. 29

weather is so sudden there that I would earnestly recommend
the fall for planting close root-pruned trees all over the Mid-
dle and Northern States. By spring new roots several inches
long will have been struck, and a much stronger growth
secured the first season. As will be seen from Prof. Brunk’s
experiments in Maryland, his trees were all planted, both
fruit and evergreen, on the 16th of April, 1892. That was
entirely too late to get the best result the first season. More-
over, something must have been wrong with the trees or con-
ditions, when the althea failed to start and do well, for it
grows almost anywhere like a weed, from’a cutting even.
As to the Norway spruce, hemlock and Lawson cypress,
I know nothing, having never seen them. But I do know
that the oranges both sour, sweet and trifoliate, will all grow
off with the greatest vigor from close top and root-pruned
trees, and thousands of orange trees are being thus treated in
Florida the present season. They may also be thus planted
all through June, July and August with perfect success, if an
additional inch and a few fibrous roots are left on. Last
summer I never lost a single one of fifteen hundred young
trifoliata, planted from seed in February and transplanted
into nursery rows in June, when about six inches high. By
fall some of them were three feet high, all having been root
and top-pruned when set, and firmly tramped. However,
with these and other evergreens each one can experiment for
himself, as soil may have something to do with results.

Havinc now discussed fully the first cause—viz., long
roots —of the general decadence and unfruitfulness of latter-
day apple and pear orchards, and given a summary of my ex-
perience as to the best methods of treating and planting close
root-pruned trees, I will in the next chapter go on with the
investigation.

CHAPTER, Vil.

Deep Preparation Wrong.

ND now to the second cause of deteriorated orchards,
ay which I claim to be the deep plowing and pulverizing
before planting, either of the whole orchard or of sev-

eral feet where the tree is to stand, in the shape of large
holes. It is, indeed, true that such preparation is necessary
for long, fibrous-rooted trees, such as our nurserymen now
furnish by once or twice transplanting, for such trees invari-
ably re-establish themselves on fibrous roots from the old ones,
being unable to penetrate a firm surface or subsoil. More-
over, such a loose, well pulverized hole, or entire plant-bed,
will undoubtedly enable such trees to take hold and make an
excellent growth, and bear well for some years; but such
preparation is entirely artificial, opposed to nature, and
infallibly lays the foundation for permature decay and death.
In furnishing the trees described a loose, porous seed-bed,
we induce, in fact compel, them to confine themselves
almost entirely to it. JI saw a most remarkable example
of this several years ago, near Seguin, in this state. A most
painstaking fruit-grower had prepared a peach orchard after
this fashion, the trees being trimmed high to allow of cultiva-
tion, and the fourth and fifth year gathered crops of excellent
fruit. In the summer of the sixth a terrible rain and wind
storm swept over that section and laid every single one of
those peach trees flat on the ground, with their roots in the
air. I wish every fruit grower could have seen this orchard,
with its surface and lateral root system scarcely one foot in
depth, having had no hold on the subsoil, excepting through
its fibrous roots. Doubtless many have had such an experi-
ence. But suppose these trees had not fallen? Is it nota fair
presumption that their roots, standing for several days in
almost liquid mud, under a July sun, would have been injured ?

(30)

DEEP PREPARATION WRONG. 31

But suppose such an excessive rain had fallen at the North,
and the thermometer had dropped below zero, freezing this
one foot of slush and roots as solid as a rock? Is there any
wonder that trees exposed to such conditions for a few years,
and, as arule, allowed to overbear, should soon yield inferior
crops, and die young ? While the peach would suffer most,
no tree can stand such treatment uninjured. So much for
reason and experience against a deepiy-stirred surface soil.

Now, let us turn to nature. As I said before, she plants
her trees with neither tops or roots, on the surface of the
firm, unbroken soil, and whether it be an apple or an oak, in
the valleys or on the hills, she grows a tree unequalled by all
the care and skill of man. Who subsoiled and pulverized for
the giant red-woods of California, the towering pines of Ore-
gon and the South, the monster sycamores and cottonwoods
of the Middle States, or dug wide holes and spread out their
roots, carefully fingering in the top soil, for the grand old
hickories, walnuts, elms and oaks that once crowned New
England’s rock-ribbed hills? True, these are forest trees,
but how about the old original Seckel pear, the old apple tree
that shaded Roger Williams’ grave, and hundreds of ancient
seedlings, of both fruits, that gave bounteous yield to three
and four generations of the Pilgrims’ sons? So much for
nature’s testimony in favor of a firm, unbroken soil.

But while all those trees were seedlings, I claim that the
close root-pruned tree is far better than a seedling. The life
force of a seed, while capable, ultimately, of the grand devel-
opments I have named, is primarily very weak. Who would
suspect that the great Charter Oak lay wrapped in the tiny
acorn, which probably made scarcely a foot of growth the
first year, or that the embryo sycamores and cottonwoods
that tower in the river bottoms of the Middle States once
floated down, almost as light as the air itself, and the first
year made but a few inches of growth? And yet a close root-
pruned cottonwood tree or a cutting will, in this section, often
grow ten feet high the first year. The potentiality of life in
the root-pruned tree is many times greater than in the seed,
and it has the additional advantage of striking several deep

32 THE NEW HORTICULTURE.

tap-roots instead of one, at the same time sending them
much deeper than a seedling will. I have repeatedly dug Le
Conte pear trees thus treated in spring, and by fall found four
feet of almost perpendicular roots, and then left them still
going down. (See the pear tree I hold in my right hand, page
eleven.) I once dug, on the 3rd of July, a spring-set tree,
and broke the roots at three feet below the surface, and this
on unbroken prairie sod, with a so-called hard-pan subsoil,
into which a post hole could not be dug except with a ground
auger! The grass was killed with a hoe and the ground kept
clean with the same, and top-dressed well with cotton-seed
meal raked in. The top measured four feet when dug. The
penetrating power of tree roots is almost incredible. Nobody
here, on Galveston Island, where ground cisterns are often
used, will dare to plant a willow or china tree anywhere near
one. I saw an instance where a willow had driven its roots
through a twelve-inch brick and mortar wall and filled up the
interior almost entirely. I could fill this entire chapter with
instances of the wonderful penetrating power of root-pruned
trees, to which the firmest soil seems to oppose not the
slightest obstruction, but will cite only one—a Herbemont
grape vine at Hitchcock, grown from a cutting, where it
stood for six years, and of large size. I cut the roots to one-
inch stubs and top to twelve inches, after planting about six
inches deep the second time, in as small a hole as I could
make, in ground never broken, at my back door. It was top-
dressed with bone and ashes, after ramming as tight as a post.
It grew two six-feet canes the first year, bore full the sec-
ond, covered a thirty-feet trellis the third, and now rambles
half over a large cottonwood tree, and has borne annually
immense crops of grapes, with never a spraying or a sign of
disease, while all the cultivated Herbemonts in the neighbor-
hood rot nearly every year. It has had liberal dressings of
bone and ashes for eight years, and been cultivated entirely
with the hoe.

As still further demonstrating the superiority of nature’s
method of a firm, unbroken soil for seedling and close root-
pruned trees, I will say that a part of my Kieffer orchard at

DEEP PREPARATION WRONG. 33

Hitchcock, embracing about one-quarter of an acre, was
originally a pond, which I had filled up fully two feet with
good surface soil before the trees were set. I expected to
see an extraordinary growth on this spot, and was greatly
surprised, at the end of two years, to find them steadily fall-
ing behind the balance, that stood on ground broken only
four or five inches. To remedy this, to me, then, most mys-
terious condition of things, I yearly applied an increased
quantity of fertilizer to this spot, but without avail, and now,
at the end of fourteen years, it is plainly discernible by the
inferior size of the trees that stand upon it.

I will now close this part of my subject with a letter
recently received from Mr. C. B. Patterson, of Payne’s
Depot, Scott County, Ky.

Mr. H. M. STRINGFELLOW.

Dear Siy—Having read with great interest your article in Zeras
Farm and Ranch on the subject of ‘‘A Deep Preparation of the
Ground for Trees Wrong,” please allow me to thank you for a per-
fectly clear explanation of a mystery in horticulture that greatly
puzzled my old father, now dead, as well as myself, and all iny
neighbors who know the fact. The old man was always a great lover
of trees, and as the black walnut is a natural growth here, wherever
the squirrels hid the nuts in fall, around in the scattering woods, that
stood on his virgin pasture soil, as they often did, he would fence in
the young groves in spots where the trees came up, to protect them
from the stock. In a few years, tall, vigorous, handsome walnut
groves rewarded his care, with no other attention, for the young trees
seemed to laugh at the blue-grass sod. But wishing to extend these
plantings to a place neglected by the squirrels when they hid their
winter store, my father one day announced his intention of beating
them as a tree grower, and accordingly fenced off several acres,
which he had plowed and harrowed several times, and most
thoroughly prepared. When all was ready the places were checked
off, and, like the squirrels, he planted the nuts. They came up
nicely, and had the best of attention for several years, when he
turned them over to the grass as the squirrels’ trees were. But all
to no purpose, for from the very first, in spite of all his care, he never
could make his trees grow like theirs, and died in total ignorance as
to how or why they beat him. This was twenty years or more ago,
and the trees are still standing here, to show for themselves, not
more than half as high or large as those planted by the squirrels
on the unbroken virgin sod. It affords me great pleasure to furnish
you this living and unanswerable proof of the correctness of your
position. that for tree seed, and, I presume, your close root-pruned
trees, which you claim to be even superior to seed, a firm, unbroken

34 THE NEW HORTICULTURE.

soil, like nature chooses, is better than any preparation man can
make. I will further add that about ten years ago I turned out a
part of a cultivated field adjoining that woodland pasture, and the
squirrels have tried their hands on it also, but with no better luck
than my father, for the trees are just as scrubby and inferior to those
alongside in the woods, as were his, and we call them ‘‘cornfield”’
walnuts, to designate their inferiority.
Yours very truly,
C. B. PATTERSON.

A few days after receiving this letter, I came across the
following, in the New York Sun, which was so strongly cor-
roborative that I cut it out:

The finest shipment of walnut for 1895 came from Texas, but as
a rule Indiana walnut is the best. Kentucky has more than any
other state, but it does not average as high as in Indiana. The
largest walnut mill in the world is in Chicago, and it uses about three
thousand car loads a year. Fifty dollars per thousand is about the
average price for the best grade of walnut, and this is all watural
Sorest growth, what is known as ‘‘cornfield”’ walnut being hard, irregu-
lar, and has more or less windshakes. Figured walnut is very
costly, and is used for veneering. One man in West Virginia owns a
figured tree which cost him one thousand dollars, for which he has
refused three thousand, and asks four thousand, there being over six
thousand feet of lumber in it.

With all this indisputable evidence of the vast superiority
of the firm, solid seed-bed, on which nature plants her trees,
is it possible to resist the conclusion that, while poor, long,
fibrous-rooted trees need soft ground and to be ‘‘ fed with a
spoon,” the sturdy seedling and close root-pruned tree de-
light to overcome the resistance of unbroken ground ?

Cri Pik AER

Cultivation.

application all over the country, but in regard to the

peach, I would especially commend them to our coast
country fruit-growers. If asked the very best location and
treatment for a peach orchard here, I would answer most em-
phatically, one broken just as shallow as possible, and with
root-pruned trees, planted in as small holes as possible, and
rammed tight. Or, better still, the unbroken prairie sod, the
grass being killed for a foot or so where the trees are to stand,
and the whole ground ‘‘cultivated”’ with a mowing machine
often enough to keep the grass down to within four or five
inches at the outside, and better less. Root-pruned trees on
fairly well drained ground, thus treated and fertilized moder-
ately, will live for many years and bear fine crops of large
fruit, while those on deeply stirred soil and annually plowed
will invariably die inside of six years; at least those set with
long roots will, and very likely the root-pruned also, for the
peach cannot stand a loose surfaced, saturated soil in this

a following remarks are intended to be of general

level country.

Having shown, first, that a long and fibrous-rooted is a
radically wrong form of tree for planting ; and secondly, that
large holes and a deeply pulverized soil, in which such trees
are ordinarily set, and which they fill in a few years with the
bulk of their roots, are receptacles for holding the semi-stag-
nant water, often for days, even on well-drained ground, dur-
ing and after continued heavy rains, followed by scalding sun-
shine in summer and also intense cold in winter at the North,
I will now take up the third probable cause of the early de-
cline and death of many latter-day orchards, especially the
peach, and that is, the annual more or less deep plowing to
which nearly all are subjected, all over the country.

(35)

36 THE NEW HORTICULTURE.

The almost universal practice is to plow at least once a
year, and then cultivate more or less deeply until midsummer.
While the trees are young and vigorous, and for the first few
years of bearing,all such orchards give their best results ; but
when once in full bearing, no surface-rooted trees, especially
the peach, such as I am now describing, can stand the drain
of a continual cutting of their roots and live long, or give
fruit of marketable size unless heavily fertilized every year,
and at least four-fifths of the crop removed by hand, early in
the season. This is the system hitherto adopted by the suc-
cessful peach grower, Mr. Hale, with his orchards grown from
long-rooted trees, and by which method he manages to make
them profitable for ten or twelve years. Having never tested
it myself on close root-pruned trees, I am very curious to see
how it is going to work on that immense orchard in Georgia,
planted after my method and on ground hitherto skimmed
over a few inches deep for corn and cotton, according to the
usual southern style. For the benefit of those who never
read of it, I will say that Mr. Hale, when the cotton was off,
without any hole digging or additional plowing, simply in-
serted a spade about six inches deep where the trees were to
stand, and, pushing the handle back just far enough to allow
of the little one-inch rooted trees being stuck down behind it,
withdrew the spade and pressed the soil back firmly with the
foot. Of course, the short roots must have rested flat on the
so-called hard-pan or subsoil, that from creation’s dawn was
never broken. From what I have read, he is now subsoiling
the middles, intends to plow every winter, and cultivate clean
until midsummer, apply free dressings of bone and potash
annually, and thin out the fruit severely by hand. I will
watch the results with a great deal of interest. Ground be-
comes boggy, after excessive rains, only just so deep as it has
been stirred, and it will become so after such rains for many
years, thus greatly increasing the danger of injury to the
roots as the trees on subsoiled ground get older, as well as
rendering it almost impossible to drive wagons over it, if a
prolonged wet spell should occur when the fruit is ripe.

But to proceed with the surface roots of fruit trees, the

CULTIVATION. 37

intimate relation between which and the fruit itself has been
greatly overlooked. Every careful observer must have noticed
that in orchards, even from long-rooted trees, while young
and growing, the fine, delicate little feeding roots do not hunt
the immediate surface like they do when the trees begin to
bear. While the trees have nothing to do but to grow, these
roots seem content to forage around six inches or more under
the surface, and for this reason, plowing and deep cultivation
during that period seems to do no harm, though cultivation
deeper than necessary for killing grass and weeds is of no
actual benefit to the root-pruned trees, nor in fact to any
other, and may, on ground not perfectly drained, as noted
above, do harm, after excessiverains. I have often wondered
just what the relation was between each leaf and fruit and the
root, and whether the former were not dependent to a certain
extent on the good offices of certain individual roots on the
surface. That in a general way the perfect development of
the fruit does depend largely on these surface roots can easily
be shown, by selecting a row of trees, for instance, in an
apple orchard that has stood several years in sod. Plow one
row five or six inches deep in spring,and cultivate and mow
the others, never letting the grass get over four inches high.
Fertilize neither, and unless apple trees act differently from
peach and pear trees here, the fruit on the mowed land will
be much the finest. As a further test, apply equal quantities
of a good fertilizer to certain trees on the sod and cultivated
ground, and the difference in favor of the sod will be surpris-
ing. But, returning to the exact relation between the leaves
and roots, the diagram on page 38 clearly shows that to a
certain extent and in a general way there is such a correspond-
ing relation. The diagram represents a bed or section in the
Galveston City Park, through which I pass every day on my
way down town. Having no particular use for the scrapings
from the paved streets, the superintendent concluded to fertil-
ize as well as raise the grade of the whole park about one
foot. This bed was selected as the starting point, and load
after load, largely composed of pulverized horse manure, was
dumped and evenly spread about one foot deep and nicely

38 THE NEW HORTICULTURE.

raked off. A start was then made on the section adjoining on
the left, but before it was completed a very heavy rain fell,
thoroughly saturating the mass and wetting the sod ground
below. In forty-eight hours, and before work was begun
again, every leaf on the liveoak trees in the center began to
turn brown, and in a week were as dry and dead as if they
had been parched. Two cedar trees that stood about four
feet from the edge were affected similarly, one losing all the
foliage and the other about half. But the point to be noticed
is that the two large liveoaks standing at the immediate angle
of the two manured plots lost their leaves in a triangular

This diagram represents a section of the Galveston City Park. The squares represent
trees—1, 1, the large liveoaks; 2, 2, liveoaks; 3, 3, the cedars mentioned in the text--the
shaded portions representing living foliage, aud the unshaded dead.

shape, just above and corresponding to the shape of the ma-
nured ground below, while all the balance of the foliage on
both trees over the unmanured ground is still fresh and green,
though two months have gone by. An examination of the
ground will be made next spring to see the effect on the roots,
but so far the young twigs seem to be unhurt. A fair pre-
sumption is that only the fine hair roots were hurt or killed by
the ammonia, but the question is, if those had been fruit trees
about to bloom in spring, would not the destruction of five or
six inches of the surface feeding-roots by the plow instead of
by the manure, have so weakened their vitality as to cause a

CULTIVATION. 39

failure of the fruit to set, or a subsequent shedding if the sea-
son was bad? Furthermore, suppose a severe drouth fol-
lowed, as often does, would not the loss of those roots not
only interfere greatly with the development of the crop that
remained, but seriously impair the vitality of the trees them-
selves? In thousands of orchards over the country this pro-
cess is kept up for years, tearing up the roots from spring till
summer, then leaving the trees the balance of the season for
replacing them, only to repeat the operation of destruction
the next spring.

After adopting a form of tree that induces or compels it
to root shallow, allowing it to bear all it will, and furnishing
it no extra supply of food, is there any wonder, after all this,
supplemented by an annual ripping up of the roots them-
selves, that orchards grow prematurely old? Of course, I
am now writing of the general run of orchards, to which
there are thousands of honorable exceptions all over the
country, both cultivated and in grass, where careful pruning
and thinning of fruit, as well as a free use of manure and
shallow cultivation, have attained the best results for a time;
but the fact still stands that the profitable bearing period of
all fruit trees has been steadily shortening of late years, and
I feel confident that this is largely due to the three causes
now given, aggravated by two others yet to be treated.

I will now briefly allude to a few other benefits from plant-
ing close root-pruned trees of all kinds on ground plowed as
shallow as possible, or better, in virgin sod, if practicable,
and mowing or cultivating shallow immediately around the
trees from the day they are set, and a few years later putting
the whole ground down to some kind of grass, whatever may
be best for different sections, mowing close, at least until the
fruit is gone, and-top dressing annually with some form of
potash and phosphoric acid. Here Bermuda grass would
head the list. I know of peach trees standing where they
came up in this city, in a compact Bermuda sod, that has
been closely cut with a lawn-mower for twelve years, that are
to-day pictures of health and vigor. They have been moder-
ately pruned, have never failed of a heavy crop, have never

40 THE NEW HORTICULTURE.

been thinned, and yet fruit is always large and fine. From
time to time the lawn has been manured. Trees of this age
that were set with long roots and plowed regularly afterward
can nowhere be shown in this whole section. In fact, six
years is the utmost limit, in this level country, of the latter
treatment, and the fruit is far inferior.

One great advantage of the above general system for all
fruit trees is that no tree trunk will ever sun-scald. This
comes entirely from the inability of a tree grown from long
roots and annually plowed, to supply a free enough flow of
sap, during hot and very dry weather, to prevent stagnation
and scald on the side exposed to the afternoon sun. A close-
pruned tree, with its deeply penetrating roots, will never fail
to do this.

A second advantage is that fruit grown on trees standing
in firm soil, undisturbed, will in rainy seasons be of far better
eating and shipping qualities than that from trees whose roots
are gorged with water, in a deep, loose soil, no matter though
well drained. This I know to be a fact.

A third advantage will be a great increase in the hardiness
of all fruit trees in northern latitudes. I am confident all
varieties, especially the peach, can be grown with perfect
success where now they winter-kill every year.

A fourth advantage is a firm roadway for hauling out the
fruit in wet weather.

A fifth and final advantage is economy. Far superior fruit,
and at a cost of twenty-five cents on the dollar, as compared
with old methods and long-rooted trees.

As going to show that these principles are true, and that
there is an increasing feeling of doubt and dissatisfaction
with present methods and their results as exemplified in the
orchards of to-day, grown, as all of them are, from long-rooted
trees, several years old when set, I will close this part of my
subject with a quotation from the April issue of Green’s
Fruit Grower, published at Rochester, in the center of the
great fruit-growing district of Western New York. Mr. P.
C. Reynolds, a regular contributor, and evidently a horticul-

CULTIVATION. 41

turist of long and wide experience, writing of their present
unproductive apple orchards, says:

‘«In my earliest recollection, little thought was given to the cul-,
ture of the orchard for the orchard’s sake. So long as profitable
crops could be grown among the trees, the orchard was cultivated.
When cropping ceased to be profitable, cultivation ceased, or if any
was done, it was done by the snouts of swine. And yet I can hardly
recall a season, during the first twenty-five years of my life, that
apples were not abundant. Some seasons, certain favorite varieties,
like Early Harvest, Sweet Bough, Fall Pippin, etc., bore heavier
crops than in others, but they were rarely entirely barren.

‘*The older members of the Western New York Horticultural
Society will remember how often this subject came up before the
society from twenty to twenty-five years ago. Patrick Barry, John
J. Thomas, Elisha Moody, J. S. Woodward, S. D. Willard, and many
other gentlemen, eminently successful fruit-growers, urged the im-
portance of thorough cultivation and, after the trees should become
so large as to require all the ground, making the growing of annual
crops unprofitable and inconvenient, they would continue culture for
the benefit of trees and fruit. On the other hand, Dr. E. Ware
Sylvester, Henry E. Hooker, Godfrey Zimmerman, James A. Root,
and a few others, insisted that after apple trees have reached bear-
ing age, as much, or more, fruit could be produced by seeding down
to grass as by cultivation, provided no grass was removed from the
orchard, but was mowed and left upon the ground as mulch, or pas-
tured by hogs or sheep. The mooted question was never definitely
settled by the society, but comes up frequently of late years. Both
parties have been able to instance many proofs of their side of the
controversy. From many years of observation among orchardists,
and from my own experience, I have come to the conclusion that
fruitfulness depends more upon several other conditions than upon
cultivation, after the trees have arrived at bearing age.

‘*Now, I would lend all possible encouragement for the feeding-
roots of apple trees to ramify and forage freely in this surface soil,
near enough the surface to be benefited by the heat of the sun and
the vivifying effects of the atmosphere and its fructifying gases. I
would be very careful not to drive those roots to the cold, inert,
sterile subsoil, beyond the reach of the benign influences of that
atmosphere of heat and gases that permeates the surface soil, where
myriads of living organisms, in the humus, carry on the work of
nitrification. Subsequent cultivation would be carried on with the
purpose of avoiding the disturbance of the roots in their best feeding
ground, and keeping the soil pulverized and mellow beyond the roots,
for their future occupancy. I would leave, every year,a considerable
space around every tree beyond that covered by the branches, to be
filled by the season’s growth of the roots, upon which I would plant
nothing, for it is very poor policy to place the roots of annuals in
competition with the roots of the trees for the plant-food and moist-
ure of the soil. Hence, every year, the space around the trees,
upon which no annual would be planted, would broaden until but

42 THE NEW HOR‘TICULTURE.

narrow stripes between the rows of trees would be deeply plowed.
Probably the soil above the roots could then be most economically
kept mellow by means of a cultivator, or of some of the most effec-
tive of modern harrows. When the time arrives that the roots of
the trees nearly fill the soil, and the land should be entirely devoted
to the trees and fruit, and the growing of temporary crops ceases, the
question presents itself: ‘Should the surface be still cultivated, or
should it be seeded down?’ If seeded to grass, I am quite positive
that no grass, in any form, should be removed from the orchard; it
should be mowed frequently, and left as a mulch upon the ground, or
it should be pastured closely with sheep or swine. Which of these
species of animals it would be advisable to keep upon the orchard
would depend largely upon the fruit-grower’s ability to handle the
animals with most profit. Most men would probably do better with
swine than sheep. There has been less decline in the price of pork,
for several years, than in the price of wool. If sheep were kept,
mutton sheep are preferable. Mr. Woodward and many others claim
that sheep are better gleaners of fallen apples and the insects they
contain than swine.

‘* Another question of momentous importance in connection with
this subject is: ‘Which would best conserve the moisture in the soil,
a mellow surface or a surface covered with grass?’ Experience
would unhesitatingly say, a mellow surface. Yet, if the grass were
mowed before it blossomed, and left spread upon the ground, as a
mowing-machine leaves it, before the advent of the dry season, the
mulch would afford nearly as much protection to the roots, perhaps
quite as much, as a mulch of mellow soil. I really question whether
it makes a great deal of difference in the productiveness of orchards,
after they have come into bearing, and their roots pretty much fill
the soil, whether the surface is kept mellow by frequent cultivation,
or is seeded to grass and kept mulched, or pastured with sheep or
swine, provided the trees are liberally supplied with plant food. Ac-
cording to my observation for several years, since attention was
called to this question, the most productive old orchards have been
in sod. Whether the sod was an efficient cause of that productive-
ness, or some other causes were dominant, I am unable to say.”

H. B. Hillyer, of Belton, Texas, closes a letter on the
subject of ‘‘ Cultivation of Orchards’’ as follows :

‘‘But is cultivation of a bearing orchard necessary? May not
Mr. Stringfellow be right? I am leaning to that opinion. I havea
beautiful orchard, thirty varieties of peaches, twenty of plums, twenty
of grapes, twelve of pears, four of apples, five of figs, five of apricots,
two of nectarines, two of blackberries. My orchard is cultivated
nicely. I have some twelve or fourteen peach trees in my yard and
chicken run. These have never been cultivated, but have been sur-
face manured. Last year, on account of severe cold, fruit in all of
this section was almost a failure, was an entire failure in my culti-
vated orchard, while the trees in my yard and chicken run made good
crops, some of them as much as four or five bushels. This season

CULTIVATION. 43

we had two white frosts, most of the Japan plums were killed, all the
apricots are killed, and at least three-fourths of the fruit in the culti-
vated orchard is killed and some trees have no fruit at all, and some
hardy varieties have a fair crop, while all the peach trees in my uncul-
tivated yards are full as they can bear of fruit. This experience of
two years has at least convinced me never again to plow an orchard
until all danger of frost is over.

‘‘My garden is very rich; is spaded every year with a prong
“spade. Dirt is not turned over, to avoid injury to the roots as much
as possible. These trees have been carefully pruned; have been shy
bearers of fine fruit; are five years old and are badly sun scalded—
will barely live another year.

‘©A negro man near me had an orchard a few years ago that he
annually planted in corn or cotton; the trees are all dead, but along
his fence he put out some trees twenty-five years ago. They have
grown in weeds that never have been plowed or hoed or mown down.
These trees are still free from sun scald and bearing good crops of
fine fruit.

‘* What does all this mean?”

CHAPTER. TX,

Growing Trees from Bearing Ones.

HILE here and there over the country a few nursery-

\\ men recognize the advantage of propagating their
stock from bearing trees, and advertise the fact in

their catalogues, the great majority of propagators and buyers
pay no attention at all to this important subject. There is
not the slightest doubt that a tree grown either from a cut-
ting, as the Le Conte and Kieffer are here, taken from a bear-
ing tree, or one propagated by budding or grafting from such
bearing tree, will fruit three or four years, often six or seven,
before one grown from a young tree that has for a number of
generations been grown from young ones that have never
fruited. I drew attention to this important point five years
ago in our local papers, and proved it beyond all doubt, by
my own experience and that of quite a number of growers
elsewhere. Since then I have been watching and experiment-
ing in this line, and find that the fruit-bearing principle is
carried just as fully by the bud as by the graft and cutting.
Four years ago | gave a friend a seedling from a Kieffer pear
tree, which bloomed the third year and bore the fourth. The
second year of that seedling’s life I took some buds from it
and top-budded a young Garber pear tree in an orchard of
three hundred of that variety and, just like the parent tree,
the growth from those buds bloomed the third year, and bore
fruit the fourth, though not a single Garber out of the whole
lot showed even a blossom. Here is absolute demonstra-
tion of the fact that even the bud from a bearing tree will
carry the early-fruiting capacity in it. Again, in 1896 in the
spring, I took buds from an old, bearing orange tree, and put
them into nine Trifoliata orange treés only two years old,
here in Galveston, and now, March 6th, eight out of the nine,
having made a good growth last season, are coming into full

(44)

GROWING TREES FROM BEARING ONES. 4.5

bloom, though I do not expect them to set the fruit. Ordi-
narily an orange from seed or from a young non-bearing tree
takes eight or nine years to bear. Still another instance
stands near my home in Galveston. J. C. Trube has two
vigorous young Le Conte pear trees, now four years old.
They bore quite a number of pears the second and third
years, were full the fourth, and are now again white with blos-
soms. Another friend, C. C. Petitt, told me recently that
Le Conte pear trees I sold him seven years ago, which he
planted at Dickinson, have bloomed but sparingly, but that
others I sold him two years ago are white with blooms. The
first lot were taken from my orchard before a large part of it
began to bear, or before I knew anything of these facts, but
the last, now in bloom, were propagated from the bearing
trees.

But it is useless to multiply instances which have been
furnished me regarding the various fruits, all pointing the
same way. While a single remove, or even a second one,
from a bearing tree might not affect the time of bearing
much, trees grown repeatedly and for years from young trees
in nursery rows will certainly be much later in coming into
bearing. This accounts fully for the fact that there are a
great number of pear trees in this section now six, seven and
eight years old that have borne little or no fruit, and pear as
well as apple trees all over the country which have behaved
the same way. The pear and apple are particularly affected
thus, and, being naturally slow to bear, no cions or buds
for propagation should ever be taken from young trees in
nursery rows, or from other than healthy trees, that have
come into full bearing. It is a great injustice to purchasers
to thus keep them waiting for fruit years after the time when
trees should bear. Every pear or apple tree grown from a
settled bearing tree will bear full the fourth or fifth year at
farthest. —

I will close this subject with several quotations, the first
from an unnamed correspondent of Zhe Rural New- Yorker,
the second from Prof. L. H. Bailey, of Cornell, and the
others by the parties whose names are signed, all going to

46 THE NEW HORTICULTURE.

show the vast importance of propagating from the healthiest
and most productive bearing trees, and never from trees in
nursery, except new varieties, bearing wood of which cannot

be had.

TWENTY-TWO years ago I set an orchard of 180 trees—one hun-
dred Baldwin, forty Rhode Island Greening, and forty Northern Spy,
the three most profitable apples, as I thought, to be set at that time.
After the orchard had been set five or six years, I concluded to
change the tops of the Northern Spy to Baldwin, as the Northern
Spy did not do very well about here at that time. Having a few
older Baldwin trees which were bearing fine crops of fruit, I selected
scions from them, and soon had the tops changed.

The result was that these trees commenced bearing five or six
years sooner, have always borne double the quantity, and of better
quality, than the trees that were budded to Baldwin at the nursery,
and set at the same time, under the same conditions. While all are
now fine, healthy trees, those that were budded to Baldwin at the
nursery make the most wood growth, and the branches are longer
and more reedy. I have also noticed that, while these trees seemed
to have as much bloom, they would not perfect more than half as
much fruit as those with the changed tops. Who will tell the reason
of this ?-— Zhe Rural New- Yorker.

Ir 1s probable that many trees fail to bear because propagated
from unproductive trees. We know that no two trees in any orchard
are alike, either in the amount of fruit which they bear or in their
vigor and habit of growth. Some are uniformly productive, and some
are uniformly unproductive. We know, too, that scions or buds tend
to reproduce the character of the tree from which they are taken. A
gardener would never think of taking cuttings from a rose bush or
chrysanthemum or carnation which does not bear flowers. Why
should a fruit-grower take scions from a tree which he knows to be
unprofitable ?

The indiscriminate cutting of scions is too clumsy and inexact a
practice for these days, when we are trying to introduce scientific
methods into our farming. I am convinced that some trees cannot
be made to bear by any amount of treatment. They are not the
bearing kind. It is not every mare which will breed or every hen
which will lay a hatfull of eggs.

In my own practice, I am buying the best nursery-grown stock of
apples(mostly Spy), and am top-grafting them with scions from trees
which please me, and which I know to have been productive during
many years. Time will discover if the effort is worth the while, but
unless all analogies fail the outcome must be to my profit.—L. H.
BAILEY.

My Dear S1r—-I have your letter of the seventh on my return
from the North, and beg to say I have read with great interest Mr.
H. M. Stringfellow’s letter in the A/vin Sun, which was enclosed in
your letter.

GROWING TREES FROM BEARING ONES. 47

I have fought Mr. S.’s battle here in California. I know he is
right. I have seen the same practice which he narrates applied to
the olive, and only six berries were produced from an orchard of over
thirteen hundred trees, after the most diligent and careful cultivation
for six years, while cuttings which I planted at the same time (taken
from old bearing trees) all bore fruit the third year. One tree bore
eleven gallons the fourth year, and I have had trees bear twenty-three
gallons the fifth year and a barrel the sixth year. The difference be-
tween an orchard of thirteen hundred trees bearing six olives the
sixth year and a single tree of the same age bearing a barrel, thirty-one
gallons, of fruit, is worth noticing, and demands investigation. And
yet, right here in Southern California, with all these facts before
them, there are nurserymen who still persist:in planting cuttings from
trees which are now forty or fifty years old, which trees never pro-
duced a hatfull of olives, which trees should bear one hundred gal-
lons at a crop.

I never plant a cutting from any tree which has not produced
fruit, and I am perfectly willing to take cuttings from the oldest bear-
ing tree in the country. Iam ready to guarantee every tree I sell to
bear fruit if planted here. I will guarantee 75 per cent. to bear the
third year and every tree to bear the fourth year.

Very truly,
FRANK A. KIMBALL.

Ir oF TEN happens that when apple trees or an apple orchard has
arrived at bearing age, from ten to fifteen years (according to va-
riety) (?), while making a good growth of wood every year, they may
fail to form fruit buds and bear fruit. In many instances trees have
reached the age of twenty years or more, healthy, vigorous trees,
that have not produced fruit enough to pay for the first cost of tree
and transportation. Now there are a good many who would be glad
to know if there are any means by which such trees can be made to
bear. It is a well known law of vegetation that a rapid-growing tree
or plant is inclined to make wood buds rather than fruit buds, and
that sap has a strong tendency to flow into terminal buds rather than
into side buds. It is a prevailing opinion of experienced horticultur-
ists that any check of growth has the effect to promote the growth of
fruit buds—reproductive organs. I have known instances where
flourishing young orchards, that had always been under cultivation,
and formed no fruit buds but annually a rank growth of wood, have
been seeded down to grass, and fruitfulness followed in two or three
years. The owners believed that the sod checked the too rampant
growth of wood and induced the growth of fruit buds. Possibly
they were right. Again, pear growers are well aware that, to make
rapid growing pear trees fruitful, it is necessary to shorten-in every
year’s growth to promote the formation of fruit buds. This fact is
so well known as to be unquestioned by well-informed pear growers.
Why may not the same methods be applied to apple trees? I know
that it would be a tedious operation to go all over the top of a large
apple tree and shorten-in the previous year’s growth, but, if it would
cause a barren tree to become fruitful, it would be labor well ex-

48 THE NEW HORTICULTURE,

pended. Iam well aware that many other causes have conspired, of
late years, to prevent apple trees with an abundance of fruit buds
from producing and maturing fruits—such as cold; protracted rains
when in blossom, preventing pollenation; severe frosts while in bloom
or afterwards; fungus on young fruit, or on fruit stems or on the
leaves; but, when no bloom appears and no fruit buds are found, it is
in vain that we look for fruit. The shortening-in process would not
be necessary every year. If practical once or twice, it might throw
the trees into fruitfulness, and then the check upon growth caused by
bearing fruit might promote the formation of fruit buds.—P. C.
REYNOLDs, in Green’s Frutit-Grower.

The unfruitfulness Mr. Reynolds here alludes to is plainly
the result of propagating from non-bearing or unproductive
trees. Instead of the ‘‘many other causes” why trees with
an abundance of fruit buds fail to bear, if he had laid the
trouble to the annual destruction of their surface roots by
the plow and cultivator, upon which roots all trees depend
for the setting of their fruit, he would have hit the nail on the
head. Every fruit-grower can find evidence of this around
him, and the experience of others elsewhere in this book con-
firms it. While it is a fact that evaporation is less froma
cultivated surface than one in a close-mowed sod, a fair test
with a seedling or a root-pruned tree will demonstrate in
every case that this loss of moisture is far over-balanced by
the service rendered the tree by its unbroken surface roots.
The superiority of all forest, shade and nut trees, as well as
seedling fruit trees, in uncultivated ground proves this. But
here let me again impress upon my readers that in all I have
to say about non-cultivation and close mowing around fruit
trees, reference is made solely to those grown from seed where
they stand, or to close root-pruned ones. While it will cause
surface-rooted trees to frequently shed their fruit, and will
ultimately shorten their lives, cultivation for them is a neces-
sary evil.

CHAPTERS
Winter Budding.

forms of tree propagation, a friend of mine, a most
progressive horticulturist, James Hancock, of Bee-

ville, Texas, has been for some time practicing a different
method with perfect success in winter and early spring, before
the sap begins to move or the bark will separate from the
wood. I also tried this method in February and later with
perfect success. He advises cutting off a little of the wood
with bark from the stock, though I tried some with bark alone
and alltook. The accompanying cut (see next page) will illus-
trate how it is done. Insert the knife into the limb or stock,
just as if a bud was to be cut and draw it downward an inch or
less, pressing the cut bark back a little to keep it open. (See
Fig. 2, on limb.) The bud is then slipped down next to the
cut surface to the bottom. It is best to make the bud fully as
long ora little longer than the cut on the limb, and let the up-
per end lap alittle. The flap is then pressed back, and tied
firmly, as in budding, completely covering the bud itself. Of
course, the leaf stalk must be cut off close, just at the bud, so
the flap will fit tight. Buds can be put in thus all winter, and
especially in early spring, and not one in a hundred will fail.
This method is especially valuable for budding large trees and
limbs, instead of top-grafting, which is far more work, and
less certain to succeed. An orchard can be cut back and very
quickly changed into another variety of fruit at any point
above the ground desired, provided the bark on the limbs is
smooth enough to bud.

The past spring, just before the leaves pushed, but when
the buds were swollen, I saw five hundred four-year-old
peach trees thus treated by top-budding without a single fail-
ure. Five and six buds were quickly put into the main limbs

(49)

| 1 THILE summer budding is one of the most common

50

THE NEW HORTICULTURE.

WINTER BUDDING.

WINTER BUDDING. 51

on each tree, which were at once cut back to within a foot of
the buds. These buds have now (May 5) made shoots three
feet long. Whether this is absolutely necessary to arrest the
movement of the sap, Mr. Hancock has never tested by leav-
ing the limb entire, but as there is practically no movement
in winter it would seem'not. There would be no objection to
cutting back in a cold climate, except dying off of limbs so
cut in case of a freeze after the sap began to move from such
severe pruning. Of course, after the buds have started well,
the limbs should be sawed off with a sloping cut close above
the buds, though the bud in the cut was not so treated.
Enough shoots of the stock should be allowed to grow below
to keep the tree healthy, which could be cut away later in the
season or the following year. This method may be very valu-
able to the orange growers of Florida in the ordinary propa-
gation of trees, as budding by the common method often fails.
It will also be exceedingly valuable for turning large trees of
pecans and other nuts into the finer kinds, and must entirely
supersede all orchard top-grafting, which, from the liability
of the scion to dry out, is a very uncertain as well as trouble-
some process, while this is quick, easy and certain. More-
over, why could it not be used by nurserymen for budding
during winter stocks that could not be dormant budded in
the fall before? Or perhaps after the bark ceases to slip in
the fall the work could be continued by this method then.
Mr. Hancock has not found it as convenient or successful
during the ordinary budding season as the common method,
nor has he ever tried it during the winter before February
here, but has had uniform success. At the North, perhaps
just when the buds begin to swell would be an excellent
time, and for the next month. I omitted saying that after
inserting the bud and pressing the flap back, a small piece of
cotton cloth dipped in beeswax should be laid over it and
then tied firmly, asin common budding. That will prevent air
and the rain from entering, and all will live.

CHAPTER 2X,
Grafting.
Wea all the various forms of ordinary grafting are

well understood, and need no description, there is
a form practiced by my friend, E. W. Kirkpatrick,
of McKinney, Texas, an old nurseryman and fruit-grower,
that is so simple and uniformly successful with all kinds of
trees and vines, that it deserves to be more widely known.

i

SCION AND STOCK COMBINED.

As seen from the illustration, if the stock to be grafted is
growing in the ground, cut off the top as for saddle grafting,
but with one of the sloping cuts, about twice as long as the
other, as shown. Then make an incision into the side of the
scion, which should be five or six inches long, about one-third

(52)

GRAFTING. 53

of the length from the top, and, inserting the lower end of
the scion, sharpened as shown, into the ground, fit the cut
place on to the stock, placing the long side of the cut surface
of the stock next to the scion. Bring the edges together on
one side, press the scion down firmly, and no tying will be
necessary, but bank the moist earth well over the union, and
pack. The scion then becomes practically a cutting as well as
a graft, and generally takes root from the lower end, as well
as unites with the stock. This method is equally suited for
house grafting, if tied to keep the stock and scion together
until planted.
Another method, particularly well adapted to the vine, and
a modification of cleft grafting, that rarely fails of success on
the grape, done either in winter, spring, or after the vine is
in full growth, provided the scions have been kept dormant.
Select a smooth place on the vine near or just under the
ground, and make a downward sloping cut, one-third or one-
half through the stock, according to
size, as shown in the illustration. A
well-ripened scien with one or two buds
is then cut as for cleft grafting, except
that the cuts, are made sloping, so as to
bring one side of the scion to an edge,
which is to be inserted in the side cut of
the stock, so as to bring the face or
broad side of the scion flush
and even with one edge of
the cut in the stock. A few
wraps of strong string will
bring the surfaces on small
stocks closer together, but
large stocks will bind the scion
tight enough. Cover the whole
SIDE GRAFTING. scion with moist earth until
growth starts, when the top should be cut away. I omitted
to say that from the middie of September to the,middle of
October here, perhaps August at the North, is an excellent
time to graft all kinds of trees, with scarcely a failure.

CHAE Wie pcre

Why Trees in Bottoms never Drown—Aeration.

EW persons, unless they have tested it, have any idea of
F that peculiar quality that soils never disturbed deeply
have of holding water on the surface, in ponds, for
instance, for years, and yet immediately after being drained,
if examined, the ground will be found friable and ready for
the plow just beneath. I once undertook to grow carp, and
for two years kept a small pond filled with water ; but find-
ing the venture a failure, and having drained the water off,
the idea occurred to me to examine the bottom at once, and
see how deep the mud was. To my amazement, it was only
about three or four inches deep, and on being scraped away
with a hoe, the bottom was actually ready for the plow. The
few inches of previously stirred surface was mud, but the
balance firm. This peculiarity of unbroken ground not tak-
ing up and holding water in it in a free or mud state is a wise
provision of nature, and accounts for the fact that wild grape
vines and forest trees in river bottoms are often, for weeks,
several feet under water without the slightest harm. Had
such ground been deeply plowed, and especially subsoiled,
trees in such locations would certainly be killed. But never
having been disturbed, the particles of soil are in that pecu-
liar natural relation to each other that, while they readily
admit between them a certain quantity of water, and allow its
passage through to the roots and subsoil, it is impossible to
make such undisturbed ground take more than that specified
amount, and so tree roots under such circumstances are not
by any means standing in mud several feet deep, as many
people ignorantly suppose. While I am sure all my readers
can recall instances in their own knowledge of trees standing
thus in water for weeks in low places, and apparently enjoy-
ing the bath, a most remarkable instance was told me

(54)

WHY TREES IN BOTTOMS NEVER DROWN—AERATION. 55

recently by a gentleman, who knows of three pecan trees
that have stood for two years on stiff land in North Texas,
with about one foot of water continuously covering the
whole surface of the ground for several hundred feet. They
bear fine pecans just as regularly as other trees, which fall
upon the water every year and are blown ashore by the wind,
some of which he has thus gathered and eaten. Could that
water be drained off and the earth examined below, it would
be found practically just like any ordinary well-drained land
after rain. Just that wet, and no more. Who doubts the
fate of those trees if the ground had been deeply plowed and
then thus flooded? But toa limited degree for a few days
after excessive rains, all deeply stirred land is in a condition
of mud, and the fine fibrous feeding roots of all fruit trees on
such ground must necessairly be either scalded and drowned
out, more or less, in summer, or seriously injured by severe
cold after such excessive rains in winter. After being once
disturbed deeply, it requires many years to again compact the
soil and bring it into its original state. This can easily be
proved by examining, after continued rains, trees that were
planted in large, deep holes, though it readily shows for itself
if the rain be accompanied with a strong wind. In such case,
fruit trees six or seven years or more of age are often twisted
or bent half over from working in the soft earth, and some-
times are blown flat. It is true that this is largely due to
long roots when planted, but in any case such a saturated
mud condition of deeply stirred soil cannot but be injurious
to a tree, and is undoubtedly the chief cause of the develop-
ment of the different forms of root tumor and rot now so com-
mon in the South, and doubtless of yellows and black-knot,
as well as other root diseases at the North. Could there be
more convincing proof that the whole theory and practice of
deep plowing and large holes for trees is wrong and contrary
to nature, than the health, vigor and long life of forest as well
as all chance seedling fruit trees on firm unbroken soil?

But, referring again to the pecan tree in water, alluded to
above, do trees need aération? While it is undoubtedly of
great service to all soils in their preparation for crops, once

56 THE NEW HORTICULTURE.

in the ground there is not the slightest evidence to prove that
the admission of air to the roots of any tree or plant by
ploughing or cultivation is of any real benefit. The facts
now given will show that the theory or belief that, somehow
or other, an extra supply of air over and above that naturally
contained in all firm soils is beneficial to tree roots in cultiva-
tion is a mistake. I had a row of bearing orange trees many
years ago, standing just behind my front fence, in the western
part of the city of Galveston. After the great storm of 1875
a vast amount of sand was washed up from the beach, close
to which my place was situated, and deposited in the street
just outside. By summer the strong south winds had blown
the most of it through my picket fence, and banked it up from
three to four feet around the bodies of the orange trees.
Many people thought it would hurt them, but believing to the
contrary, I leveled it all down nicely, leaving the bodies
standing fully three feet in beach sand. On this was spread
a heavy coat of barnyard manure. The next year those trees
made a most remarkably strong growth, and continued to do
well until killed by the freeze of 1886.

Another instance occurred last fall. When passing along
near the sidewalk of a friend in this city, who had a long row
of live oaks five to eight inches in diameter standing on low
ground which he was about to fill up, I saw that he had taken
up about half of the trees, and raised them several feet, as
the sidewalk was being filled in. I told him about my orange
trees, and advised him to treat his oaks the same way. He
did so, filling in with good earth from the mainland. The
result was continued good health, and a fine growth the past
season. While the filling on the public square with strong
manure, as noted elsewhere, was very injurious, any quantity
of soil can be placed around trees with safety, if not actual
benefit.

After all, is not cultivation really only a necessary evil ?
For trees, facts clearly point that way. For certain annual
crops, that grow when the weeds do, it is absolutely neces-
sary to cultivate, to prevent the weeds from appropriating
a large share of plant food and moisture, and also equally

WHY TREES IN BOTTOMS NEVER DROWN—AERATION. 57

important to shade the earth around growing plants, and
keep down evaporation. Still, do we not, by inverting the
soil and putting the humus at the bottom instead of the top,
where nature puts it, and also by exposing the pulverized
surface to the leaching of heavy rains, which carry off far
more soluble plant food than is appropriated by the trees,
really do our orchards more harm than good? We cultivate
and crop our lands until, if no fertilizer is added, they ulti-
mately refuse to produce, and we turn them out as old fields.
Nature then plants them with trees, and not only grows a
vigorous crop from year to year, but rapidly renews the
fertility of the soil itself by depositing vegetable matter on
the surface where, exposed to air, heat and moisture, it is
continually rendering plant food soluble, and returning it to
the storehouse of the earth. Why, if nature can rear an
immense forest growth on impoverished land, and in the
course of time return it to us rich, cannot we grow fruit trees
by the same method? The leaves, grass clippings, and
annual dying of the surface roots of the sod, leave the
vegetable matter just where the elements can, through its
decomposition, prepare food for the tree roots, to supplement
which I propose an annual top-dressing. And yet, reason-
able and natural as this treatment of an orchard is, men will
theorize about the vast excess of evaporation from a Sod sur-
face over a cultivated one, and demonstrate to a certainty
how superior the latter must be; but nature laughs at them,
with her vigorous and productive old seedling trees, in out-
of-the-way places, while everywhere throughout the country,
continually, cultivated trees become diseased early, fail to
bear regular crops, and die young.

CHAPTER XU

Grapes.

S TO grapes, and the adaptability of various kinds to
Ah the different sections of the country, it is certain
that the practice of close root-pruning is going to

make some radical changes. As remarked elsewhere, the
grape becomes permanently very surface-rooted when grown
from long-rooted vines, but roots exceedingly deep from a
close root-pruned one. The question is, How far is this go-
ing to influence the behavior of vines in given localities? As,
for instance, it did the old Herbemont on my former Hitch-
cock place. That vine, taken up when six years old, closely
root and top-pruned and replanted, has made an extraordi-
nary growth, and is bearing enormous crops every year. It
is entirely free from all disease, while the same variety, as
ordinarily planted and cultivated, rots in the neighborhood
nearly every year. The general opinion in South Texas has
been, that all the Labrusca and their hybrids are short-lived.
As all-those grapes bear very heavily, and are nearly always
allowed to overbear, may it not be that this and long,
fibrous roots are at the bottom of the trouble, if it be true ?
Not caring to retain any of them after a fair test, and finding
them unsuited for distant shipment, owing to early shelling
of the berries, I always threw them out, having so many
experiments on hand. Thus I never kept any of the La-
brusca over four or five years. My tests of the American
varieties included over fifty of the latest and most prominent,
and out of the whole list, I would unhesitatingly select the
Lindley for South Texas, as the very best early light-red
grape, though it does not set its fruit well unless planted
near or alternated in rows with a staminate variety, such as
the Agawam or Salem. The two latter are by far the largest
and best dark-red grapes, while Wilder easily stands at the

(58)

GRAPES. 59

head of the blacks. The Niagara is the very best white or
golden grape, being of larger size and more productive than
Moore’s Diamond, as well as a much stronger grower. These
are the cream of all the American grapes, as table grapes, for
South Texas. Of course, in the Gulf Coast and southwest-
ern part of Texas, the old Herbemont and Lenoir or Black
Spanish are the standard wine and arbor grapes, though they
are of little value for market. But while all the grapes recom-
mended above are excellent for home use and markets that can
be reached in one day or less, it would be useless to plant
them or any other American grape largely for more distant
shipment. They will all shell off, or drop from the bunch, in
our hot summer weather, after being gathered, at the end of
that time. After July the northern and California grapes
take our markets, and prices rule very low. While some of
the Munson and other American grapes will hang quite late
in the summer, it scarcely pays to leave them, on account of
depredations by the birds, unless constantly watched. For
wine growing, except on a small scale for local markets, we
can never compete with California, as grapes are grown more
cheaply there than here. But while most of the Vinifera are
unsuited to Texas, except the southwestern portion, around
Beeville and near the coast, where they are proving very suc-
cessful, it is highly probable that the Chasselas de Fontaine-
bleu will also prove at home in the eastern coast district,
several vines being now in full bearing on Galveston Island.
Grapes mature very early in the Southwest, the Chasselas
coming in about the 5th of June, and in Galveston county but
a very short time afterwards. Of course, all vines should
be closely root-pruned, set in as small a hole as practicable,
and well rammed. In the matter of training, they are almost
exclusively adopting the California low head, no trellis,
system, in Southwest Texas, and the same plan would
answer well for the Chasselas in the eastern coast region.
But all the American grapes seem to do better on somewhat
longer pruning, though I know of vines that have given good
crops on the above plan. As a rule, perhaps, the renewal
system of Several new canes, about three feet long for vines

60 THE NEW HORTICULTURE.

in full bearing, trained fan-shape to a trellis of three wires,
will furnish all the fruit that any vine should carry. I would
earnestly caution against overbearing all through the life of a
grape vine, and especially of young ones the first few
years. This is the cause of the failure and early death of
nine out of ten vines that break down. One good bunch to a
shoot is all that should be left until the vines get strong.

As to fertilizer, bone and potash will supply all the food a
vine requires, and potash is especially important for their
health. Where cotton-seed hull ashes or plenty of wood ashes
can be had, there is nothing better. As to insects, the
most serious enemy to the grape in the South is the leaf
roller; and while he never attacks the smooth, thin leaves of
the Vinifera, he rarely allows the woolly leaves of the
Labrusca or its hybrids to escape. One spraying with Paris
green and a little lime, at the rate of one pound of the green
to one hundred or even one hundred and fifty gallons of lime
water, when the berries are half grown, will be washed off
before the fruit ripens, but will protect entirely until
the fruit has been sold, when another will carry the
vines through the summer. The birds are the only other
enemy, and while there are not so many in Southwest Texas,
they are exceedingly destructive everywhere else throughout
the South. The very best remedy is to pepper them with peas
from a gun, or very fine shot at long range, for a few days,
when the fruit begins to ripen. It is astonishing how quickly
they will communicate the fact when they are struck. Dead
birds, like dead men, tell no tales, but lives ones are quick to
do it. However, it is highly probable that birds attack
grapes much oftener to quench their thirst than to obtain food,
and if shallow vessels of water are placed at intervals
throughout the vineyard, the loss of fruit will be very small.

In marketing the fruit, it should always be gathered in
shallow boxes, with cleats on the ends for handles, so they
can be piled up on each other, in hauling to the packing
house. There it should remain over until the next day, to
allow the stems to wilt, so that the bunches will lose their
rigidity and pack more closely without bruising. All broken,

GRAPES. 61

green or decayed berries should be clipped from the bunches
with sharp-pointed grape scissors. The 5- and g-pound bas-
kets are the most common packages, but they are not only
more inconvenient for packing in the car, but are too close
for the far South, in hot weather. The square box or crate,
with four 5-pound baskets, such as seems to be in general use
in California, is far better, and they should be well filled, so
the cover will fit tightly, to prevent shaking. The catalogues
will furnish a very extensive list for those who want variety,
even though inferior grapes.

But there is one other grand but neglected old grape for
home use, both for the table and for wine. I allude to the
Scuppernong, which, while it grows everywhere like a weed,
has failed hitherto to set its fruit. The cause is now very
plain. Simply the old trouble of pistillate blooms. Mr. S.
N. Richardson, of Alvin, tells me that he has tried it, and
named a party in Columbia who had the same experience on
a large scale. If the common male Muscadine, which blooms
just when the Scuppermong does, is planted close by, instead
of dropping its fruit, as it always does, the latter will bear
every year, and most profusely. This is a very important
fact, for this famous old southern vine, if trellised, will cover
an acre, and asks no other favors than a good annual dress-
ing of potash in some form, and then to have its roots let
alone. For chicken yard, around back doors, or wherever
shade is desired, it will not only answer that useful purpose,
but also bear loads of delicious grapes for wine or table use.

As to distance for planting, eight feet each way between
the Labrusca varieties will be sufficient, but twelve feet or
more is best for the Herbemont and Lenoir in the immediate
coast country. Around San Antonio and in Southwest
Texas, however, they succeed well stump-pruned, like the
Vinifera in California, but the climate is dryer in that portion
of Texas, and vines are less subject to rot. While clean
cultivation is now the rule, I propose planting a small vine-
yard, as an experiment, with twelve feet between rows and
vines four feet in the rows. After cultivating for a year very
shallow, they will be put down to grass and mowed often

62 THE NEW HORTICULTURE.

enough to keep it short, and surface roots will not be broken
again. There are many isolated vines thus treated that are
bearing heavy annual crops with no spraying, while plowed
and cultivated vines rot every year. In fertilizing, beware of
cotton-seed meal or other manures rich in ammonia, as that
element is very apt to produce rot in the fruit. A good
annual dressing of some form of potash and phosphoric acid
will make vigorous vines and plenty of fruit.

As to spraying, while some have not found any benefit
from it on fruit trees, there is no doubt that in most sections
of the country it is an absolute necessity for sound grapes,
and while it will not prevent blight on the pear, it does add
greatly to the appearance of the fruit.

CHAP THR cXIv.

The Apple.

AVING spent the last thirty years of my life on the im-
H mediate Gulf coast, my experience with apples is nec-
essarily limited, and as a book on horticulture would
not be complete without a notice of this best of all fruits, I
append on that subject a most excellent article from the
Southern States, by Prof. M. B. Hilliard, of the Louisiana Ex-
periment Station. He is known as an authority on horticul-
ture in the far South, and his suggestions are well worth the .
careful attention of all fruit growers. There is no doubt that
the apple as a money maker has been very greatly overlooked
in the southern states, even when grown from long-rooted
trees, which in our hot climate tends greatly to dwarf them,
by compelling them to take on a surface system of roots, in-
stead of penetrating deeply, which they would do if their
roots were closely pruned. That this is true is clearly shown
by the two very large apple trees now growing near Hitch-
cock, Galveston Co., on Mr. H. Perthuis’ old place. Those
trees were a great puzzle for several years, and induced me
to plant two hundred apple trees at the same time IJ planted
my pear orchard. While that variety is not suited to this
locality, as far as productiveness is concerned (nor is it prob-
able that any apple would pay on the Gulf coast), still those
two trees clearly show that if planted right, the apple will
make a large tree even here. Those two trees are now about
twenty years old, and their history, as given by Mr. Perthuis,
is as follows:

During a visit to Houston he saw a thrifty young apple
tree in the yard of a friend, and when about to return he cut
off a shoot with the intention of grafting several quince trees
on his place at Hitchcock. On reaching home he cut the
shoot in half and stuck the two pieces into the ground for a

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64 THE NEW HORTICULTURE.

few days. Being busy, they remained there several weeks,
and when he finally took them up for grafting, he was sur-
prised to find little roots just starting from the lower ends.
He at once set them out about twenty feet apart, where they
took root, made a rapid growth, and long ago their branches
met, the bodies near the ground being over one foot in diam-
eter. While not very productive, owing to the variety not
being adapted this far South, these trees have been models
of health and vigor, though for many years they have stood
in the sod. The two hundred trees I was induced to plant
from the conduct of these two were set with very long roots,
_and after growing moderately well for several years, finally
assumed such a dwarf habit, though given the best of culture
and, being between rows of pear trees, that they were dug up
and thrown out. I had then found out the value of root-
pruning, and was not surprised to see perfectly flat, lateral
and surface root systems on them all, not one having struck a
single tap-root. That is plainly the cause of the dwarf habit
all apple trees assume in the far South, and it is possible that
some of the southern winter varieties named in Prof. Hil-
liard’s excellent article may be adapted even here, if closely
root-pruned when planted. This is one fruit, however, that
should be planted in the valleys all over Texas and the South.
It blooms late, is never caught by frost, and, like the pear,
loves a moist location. It is hard to hurt an apple tree with
water, and its general failure to do well in the far South is
due, next to leaving long roots, more to planting on high,
dry locations than anything else. In the valley near the
Hannah Springs, at Lampasas, are a dozen or more thrifty
apple trees, planted nobody knows just when, and being on
the Springs property, were turned out on the common fifteen
years ago. They have never failed a single crop during that
time, as I was informed by a resident who had known of
them that long, and when I saw them recently, every tree
was overloaded, but looking fresh and green. The remark-
able point about those trees was that not a sign of a worm or
insect could be found upon either fruit or leaves. Unfortu-
nately, while there are plainly six varieties, nobody knows

THE APPLE. 65

what they are, as the fruit is never allowed to get more than
half grown before it is carried off by the public. If the
suitability of the valleys of the interior of Texas for apple
culture is to be judged by the way those trees have done for
many years, certainly the fruit-growers of our state are mak-
ing a great mistake in neglecting to plant extensive orchards
of this staple and most profitable of all fruits on some of the
rich bottom lands now given entirely to corn and cotton.

But whatever our southern brethren do, the fruit-growers
of the apple states will make no mistake to begin now to set
close root-pruned apple trees. The orchards of the last de-
cade or more have all been planted with large, long-rooted
trees, and no amount of cultivation or care will prolong their
usefulness over twelve or fifteen years. It takes but a few
full crops to break down trees the bulk of whose roots are in
the upper twelve inches of the soil, and the man who selects
the best varieties now, root-prunes closely, plants in small
holes, rams tight, cultivates well for a few years, and then
puts down to Bermuda, blue grass, or other sod, and pastures
or mows it, not forgetting to top-dress well around the trees
each year with some good fertilizer, will, if his trees are prop-
agated from productive, bearing ones, begin in four or five
years to reap a rich harvest, and have an orchard that will
long outlive him, and be the safest legacy he can leave his
children. As to all the talk about the old, choice varieties of
winter apples running out, it may be set down as talk and
nothing else. They have been run out by the persistent
persecution they have been subjected to, in the form of trees
used, and the continual cutting of their roots with the plow,
together with overbearing. There is not to-day an apple in
the country that, if put upon a vigorous, healthy, close root-
pruned stock, will not bear as fine fruit as it did the first
crop it ever bore, provided its roots are let alone when the
tree begins to bear. As bearing on this point I give the
following letter:

66 THE NEW HORTICULTURE.

Caspiana, La., Dec. 75, 1905.
H. M. STRINGFELLOw.

Dear Sir—Seeing your remarks in Farm and Ranch on your suc-
cess with Terry Winter Apple in sod, leads me to inquire why we are
now unable to grow winter apples here in the Red River Valley like
we did years ago. We live at Caspiana, La., twenty miles below
Shrevesport, and when we bought the plantation, just after the war,
found two large apple trees growing near a small house on the bank
of the river. They were different kinds, but both fine large apples,
one very red, and never failed to bear full crops. The ground was
never disturbed, and we had no troublein keeping the fruit all through
the winter and often took samples to the Shrevesport merchants, who
said they were far superior, especially in quality, to any of the
imported apples. Finally, at their suggestion, we sent Stark Bros.
cuttings of both kinds, which we named Numbers 1 and 2, as nobody
could identify them, with an order to propagate one hundred trees.
They did so, and we planted them twenty feet apart, cultivated clean
ever since, until now the branches are lapping; but, though about
fifteen years old and apparently perfectly healthy, we have never had
a single ripe apple. The trees bloom every spring, set full of fruit,
but all of it rots in midsummer and falls off. Shortly after sending
the wood to Stark Bros. a big rise in the river caused the bank to
cave, carrying away both of the old apple trees. Do you think clean
cultivation is the cause of the fruit rotting?

Yours truly,
A. E. HuTCHINSON.

CEAP TES .26V

The Pear.

HE pear having now established itself as the leading
oh fruit of the Gulf coast, except that portion devoted to
the orange, and its general management having been

so fully given in horticultural journals, as well as books, little
remains to be said, except to mention the varieties best suited
to the far South. And first, it may be remarked that the
experience of the last few years has quite definitely settled
the question as to the blight ever becoming a cause for alarm
here, if orchards are allowed to take their natural rest during
the winter. That bearing orchards should be neither plowed,
fertilized nor. pruned at that time is certain. There is
scarcely a doubt that trees thus treated will remain perma-
nently healthy if not allowed to greatly overbear. It is true
that all the bearing orchards have been grown from more or
less long-rooted trees, but the native vigor of the Chinese
pears is so great, and the water level so near the surface,
that the natural motion of the sap is likely always to be main-
tained during the growing season. This is shown plainly
from the fact that the leaves remain fresh and green on the
trees until December. It is to this fact that this section owes
-its remarkable exemption from blight ; for if the trees are not
stimulated during winter, the sap will remain dormant until
the proper time for growth in spring. As to varieties for the
Gulf coast region, it may be well to repeat that the experi-
ence of thirty years has shown that none of the old standard
American or European varieties can be depended on to pro-
duce a paying crop anywhere in the far South. It is true
that isolated trees here and there have given some pears, but
only in small quantities ; nor are the trees sufficiently vigor-
ous in our climate. The Le Conte, Garber and Kieffer,
ripening in succession, are a perfect success everywhere.

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68 THE NEW HORTICULTURE.

The Smith’s Hybrid is simply a poor Le Conte. It ripens at
the same time, but rots more quickly at the core, and after
fruiting several years, my trees were top-budded to Garber,
which pear forms a perfect succession to the Le Conte, and
is superior in quality to either it or the Kieffer. It resembles
the latter closely in shape and size, but has the smooth skin
of the Le Conte, and ripens well on or off the tree, never
rotting at the core or suffering from the bitter-rot on the out-
side, as the Kieffer often does. However, with all its good
qualities, it has one most serious fault, and that is, its late-
ness in coming into bearing. This is due, probably, to the
fact that it has been grown so continuously from young trees.
that a full crop cannot now be expected on such trees for ten
years or more. But it is of the greatest importance that this.
variety should be largely grown as a succession to Le Conte,
when it becomes necessary to can or evaporate our crop. It
ripens at a time that offers a better market for pears than any
period in the year, for the California, Bartlett and Le Conte
are then gone, the Kieffer still green, and the California
varieties on the market are far inferior in quality to it.
Fortunately, we now have a way to bring this variety into
early bearing—by budding it on Le Conte, Kieffer or
young Garber, grown from cuttings. The great difficulty is
to obtain wood from bearing trees. The Kieffer is so well
known that comment is unnecessary, except to warn growers
against allowing it to overbear.

While in remarks elsewhere on the decadence of modern
orchards no reference to the pear in the South was intended,
there is no question that over cropping and non-fertilizing
will quickly reduce the fruit to a very small size, and greatly
weaken the tree. I omitted to allude to one other pear that
is now growing in my former orchard at Hitchcock, which
requires mention only as a warning of its utter worthlessness.
for any purpose. It has from time to time been put before
the public as Early Harvest, Jefferson and Lawson-Comet,
but is a fraud under any name. A fourteen-year-old tree that
cost me two dollars has never borne more than a dozen pears.
at a time, and never bloomed until it was ten years old,

THE PEAR. 69

though it is one of the most vigorous growers in the orchard,
and now over thirty feet high. It is the earliest and most
beautiful of all pears, ripening about the first of June, but it
rots at the core in a day or so after being gathered, if near
ripe, and in quality is about equal to sawdust. Referring
again to the Garber, and budding from bearing trees, it
would not be advisable to top-bud young two or three-year-
old Le Conte trees in orchard, for the labor of keeping the
Le Conte shoots rubbed off below would be very considerable
for several years. It would be far better to bud within a foot
of the ground, and turn the whole tree into that pear.

Having discussed the growing of cuttings fully ina former
chapter, it is only necessary to say here that it is practically
impossible to grow this pear from cuttings except in the fall,
when, if planted the last of September or early in October,
in the open ground if sufficiently moist, or closely in a bed
and kept watered, go per cent. of it, as well as Le Conte and
Kieffer, will root.

CHAPE EA VA.

The Plum.

NTIL the introduction of the Japan varieties, the
le, South, especially the lower portion, bordering on the
Gulf of Mexico, has been altogether dependent upon

the native or Chickasaw varieties for her plums. I began
years ago to test the most prominent sorts, that are so de-
servedly popular in the Middle and Northern States. While
all are reasonably good growers here, they fail entirely in pro-
ductiveness. Occasionally a few fine specimens will reward
one’s labor, but nothing more. Of the common sorts, the
Wild Goose, if pollenized with some other kind near by, will
produce good crops, and the Robinson, Indian Chief and
Golden Beauty, a small late plum, are all good bearers also,
though they fall far short of filling the bill as first-class mar-
ket plums. The skin of all is very thin and tender, and they
fall an easy prey to the vigorous attacks of the curculio, un-
less well sprayed with Paris green and lime water, or the lat-
ter alone, scented with a pint to the barrel of gas tar. But
with the introduction of the Japan varieties, a new era has
dawned upon plum culture in the Gulf States. Not only are
the members of this class proving early bearers, and exceed-
ingly productive as a rule, but their skin is thicker and, we
hope, less liable to damage by the curculio. We may, there-
fore, rest assured that at last we shall have, with moderate
spraying, fine, large, handsome market plums, perfectly
adapted to the South. But the all-important and as yet un-
settled problem is, Which are the most valuable varieties ?
The pictures and descriptions of all fruits contained therein
are so bewildering in their magnificence, and this class of
plums particularly, that one instinctively wants them all.
The first to flash across the sky of horticulture were the
Abundance and Botan, between which, if there is any real

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THE PLUM. 71

difference, I have never been able to see it, though there is
now a plum called the True Sweet Botan, or Berckmans, that
is somewhat different both in growth and bearing, and, like
the Botan, a most excellent eating fruit. This plum equals
any of the Japan race in quality, though the various catalogues
are annually bringing out something that they claim is better.
One enterprising nurseryman in Louisiana has a genuine rab-
bit’s foot for getting all sorts and colors, from snowy white
to ebony black, fresh by telegraph from Japan, their flavors
ranging through such a delicious chord of descriptive adjec-
_ tives that one wonders that the very angels do not drop their
harpsvand hie them) back to earth. Let, them alone!,);The
old Kelsey is undoubtedly a splendid fruit where it succeeds,
but it is subject to rot in many places, though neither
here or in Southwest Texas. It is enormously prolific there,
and I saw it in perfection at Beeville, at which place, though
plums and peaches have been grown for many years, I saw
several very old and extensive orchards that were entirely
exempt from curculio and worms. It is plain that this insect
has no love for a dry, warm climate, as he also ignores West-
ern Texas generally. But in point of production, good size,
solidity and moderate earliness, the Burbank stands far ahead
of all Japan plums, though the fruit has been greatly over-
rated. The quality here is quite poor, unless left on the tree
until perfectly mature, when it is passably good. The Ha-
tankio, or Kerr, is also a good eating plum, but a large five-
year-old tree at Hitchcock has borne no fruit, the blossoms
dropping every year. The Ogon bore well last year, but the
quality is very poor, as is that of the Satsuma, which, like
the Hatankio, is practically barren. The Red June or Na-
gate, being boomed this season, like the Willard was last, as
the best of all the Japan plums, has failed to bear a plum on
a large five-year-old tree at Hitchcock, for which I paid the
Starks one dollar, nor has it even formed blossom buds. The
Willard is equally worthless here, the trees actually not leaf-
ing out until the first of May. The new Wickson comes
highly recommended, and ought to be valuable, as it is Mr.
Burbank’s pride.

72 THE NEW HORTICULTURE.

However, while in the beginning of this chapter I ex-
pressed great confidence in the final success of the Japan
plums in the far South, I must admit that the present season
of ’96 has witnessed a failure throughout the coast country
of Texas. This fact is puzzling many who have planted freely
and others who desire to plant. There has been no frost at
all to damage the blooms, and the Robinson, Wild Goose,
Indian Chief and other Chickasaw varieties are all loaded
down, yet the Japan plums in the same orchards have not
only cast all or nearly all their fruit, on trees of all ages, from
three to six years, but straggled along for more than a month
in blooming, and to-day, the first of- May, blooms are still
opening. There is unquestionably a cause for this queer
conduct, and after studying over it for a month, and with a
full knowledge of the general failure of the Marianna as a
stock for these plums elsewhere, I am of the opinion that
this freak is largely due to a decided want of congeniality
between the Japan race and the Marianna stock here also.
While the Marianna has become immensely popular as a
stock for other plums, both because of its vigorous growth
and the fact of striking so readily from cuttings, and never
suckering, and while it may yet, perhaps, be the best of all
stocks at the North, there is indubitable evidence to prove
that the Japan plums are very short-lived when worked upon
it in Texas and the South, and that it will generally kill a
peach at the end of the first and always the second year.
Complaints on this score have been general for some time,
and many nurserymen are abandoning its use altogether, pre-
ferring to work the Japan plums entirely on the peach, which
experience has shown to be particularly adapted to that race.

I was at Hitchcock recently, and saw a six-year-old
Burbank plum tree, one of the four oldest on my former
place, which had recently died without the slightest visible
cause. A careful examination, after being dug up, showed
the roots to have been apparently healthy, with not the
slightest sign of root tumor or rot, and its growth had been
extraordinary, and yet it is now dead, and one of the others
is plainly doomed. I saw the same results in 1895 at

THE PLUM. 73

Beeville, in Southwest Texas, and only last week in Beau-
mont, on the east, where two orchards on Marianna, seven
years old, had died the past summer. The same experience
has been related by Mr. J. W. Steubenrauch, of Mexia,
Texas, one of the most successful orchardists of North Texas,
and also by several growers in Tyler, the greatest fruit center
in the state, while similar reports come from Louisiana and
east of the Mississippi. It may, therefore, be set down as
proved beyond all doubt that this stock is unsuited and un-
congenial to the Japan race of plums. In a recent letter,
Mr. Luther Burbank tells me that it is also of doubtful value
in California. Several nurserymen of East Texas are now
propagating the Japan plums on the common wild plum of
this state, the Prunus Americana, and claim that it is well
suited to them. I have had some experience with that plum,
and so far it seems to dwarf whatever was put upon it even
more than the Myrobalan. However, as there are a great
number of different seedlings of this species, some differing
considerably from others, they may have one better suited
than mine. I have seen some seedlings in the woods near
Beaumont that suckered badly, though others do not. As it
has been only recently that experience has shown the want of
congeniality of the Marianna and Japan plums, it is doubtful
whether there are trees of the latter race more than five or
six years old on the Americana stock, so it is entirely un-
settled yet how they will ultimately succeed, and assertions
of interested parties must be taken with great caution.
Enough money has been fooled away on the oriental plums
worked on Marianna to make people go very slow with this
new stock. On firm, well-drained ground, fertilized and
regularly mowed, but not plowed, I believe the peach is the
best stock for the Japan plums, unless the Myrobalan is supe-
rior. The latter is almost universally used in California and
France, and is said to be especially adapted for stiff soil and
damp ground, and is entirely successful as a stock in such
locations in California. I have heard no objection to this
stock, except that the Japan plums do not grow as fast on it
ason Marianna. This is no objection at all, if the trees live

74 THE NEW HORTICULTURE.

and are productive. In fact, a moderate growth is more
likely to be a healthy one.

But, after all, would not all these Japan plums be likely
to succeed just as well on their own roots as on any other
stock? There would be no difficulty in treating them thus
by grafting on the Marianna plum, and then cutting away the
stocks after the scions had taken root at the lower ends.
Some of the Japan plums, particularly the Satsuma, will
sometimes grow quite well from cuttings, and all would likely
root if treated as described in the chapter on grafting. It is
well worth trying, for naturally vigorous trees like these
plums would do best on their own roots. But in the near
future Mr. Luther Burbank promises us a far better stock
than any we nowhave. He has crossed the Satsuma on other
varieties, and thinks he has something that will fill the long
desired want for a vigorous stock particularly adapted to the
Japan varieties as well as all other plums.

CHAPT ERS x@\viiik

The Peach.

OR some unexplained reason, the Persian strain of
F peaches, so successful elsewhere over the United States,
is a total failure in lower South Texas, and especially
along the coast. The trees grow well, but are all very back-
ward in starting off in spring, and form but few fruit buds.
I do not know of a single productive tree of any of these
varieties in this whole section. A fine, large Elberta, on Mr.
I. Aiken’s grounds at Hitchcock, now six years old, has
never borne over a dozen peaches at a crop, and has not that
many on the tree the present season. However, though we
may not grow the Persian varieties successfully, still we are
not without kinds that will afford a succession, if not of extra
large peaches, still most excellent ones in quality, and unsur-
passed in productiveness and regularity of bearing. I allude
to the Waldo, Angel, Imperial and Climax, of the Peen-to
and Honey strains. Those are all freestones. The Triena is
a red-fleshed cling, about the same size as the above, and the
best clingstone of those strains. While the catalogues con-
tain an additional list of a great number of these hybrids,
they are all practically identical with the above or inferior to
them, and ripen precisely at the same time. It is claimed
that the Jewell is about a week earlier than Waldo, but
proved no earlier with me, and has the bad fault of blooming
Several weeks ahead of the Waldo. The above are all of the
Chinese Peen-to and Honey types. In addition to them,
recent experiments have shown that several Chinese hybrids
are also very productive in the Gulf region. The Chinese
Free, Thurber and Family Favorite are the cream of this type,
and will furnish the best and largest peaches yet found that
bear well this far South. Though the season has been ex-
ceedingly dry, these varieties were heavily loaded with large

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76 THE NEW HORTICULTURE.

fruit of most excellent flavor. There is, perhaps, no coun-
try in the world where a peach crop can be counted on
with more certainty than on the above varieties here. The
warm Gulf breeze beats back the early fall northers, and our
peach trees hold their leaves until late in fall; in fact, often
almost until Christmas. This causes them to rest late enough
in spring, if not winter-pruned, to nearly always miss. the
killing late frosts, so fatal further up the country. It is true
that the Waldo and Angel, which bloom first, sometimes get
caught, but they have the remarkable faculty of holding back
enough buds, with almost human sagacity, to furnish a full
crop, even if the first blooms are killed. This peculiarity,
with their good eating and shipping qualities and small pits,
makes them not only very desirable for home use, but should
make them profitable as a market crop when the interior
peaches are killed. The so-called Spanish peaches, Gal-
veston, Onderdonk, Carpenter, Florida Crawford, Countess
Victoria, and others, are really nothing more than common
seedlings of more than ordinary merit, but not profitable for
any except a nearby market. They lack color, nor are all of
that list good bearers here, and all are late. I omitted to say
that the Dwarf Japan Blood has proved of no-value, having
been unproductive now for four years.

As stated elsewhere, the peach must have dry feet and a
firm soil, both top and bottom, for health and long life here.
There is no place for a close root-pruned peach orchard like
a rolling, well drained, virgin prairie sod, with close mowing
during the growing season. But not for trees set with long
roots. By imitating nature, and planting close root-pruned
trees, practically seed, on ground like she selects, perhaps
even the dread yellows will never appear, and peaches
may be grown at the far North with good success, where now
they either die of the above disease or winter-kill every year.
The curculio and common cotton-boll worm are the only
serious enemies to the fruit here, and the best preventive I
have ever tried is a thorough spraying with weak whitewash,
with a little gas tar added to make it smell. This appeals to
both sight and smell, and has given me sound fruit.

CHAPTER XVIN,

Apricots, Figs, Japan Persimmons, and Nuts.

ties and a large number of the old standard kinds has,

up to the present time, failed to develop a single pro-
ductive apricot. They all grow well and bloom profusely,
but fail to set their fruit. Recent experiments, however,
with the old Royal, at Arcadia, lead to the hope that it may
bear, for it set some fruit the present season, which unfortu-
nately a severe wind thrashed off. .

Fics.—This popular fruit should be in every man’s yard
in abundance, both for himself and for his poultry, and,
being exceedingly surface-rooted naturally, should always be
grown from a cutting or very close root-pruned tree. But,
except for very nearby markets, it is almost useless to grow
figs in quantity. A large preserving establishment was
started in New Orleans a few years ago, and a very consider-
able quantity of the fruit put up, but experience soon showed
that the preserves were of such an exceedingly sweet and
cloying quality that very few could be eaten at once, and the
demand has been very small. The plant suspended opera-
tions a year ago, and is now idle. The fig thrives far better
in a firm, packed, undisturbed soil, like a back or chicken
yard, than when plowed and cultivated. The little Celeste or
Sugar is much the most hardy and popular kind, and if
trained up as a standard will make a very large and hand-
some shade tree.

Japan Persimmons.—A few years ago it was impossible to
sell the fruit of this tree, or even give it away. Dr. Pearle,
of Houston, planted quite an orchard twelve or fifteen years
ago, and when the trees came into bearing, I happened to visit
the place in the fall, and found a large lot of the fruit on
hand, for which there was positively no demand. Since then,

(77)

Sy eco in South Texas with several Florida varie-

78 THE NEW HORTICULTURE.

however, the public taste has been gradually educated up to
a moderate demand, and possibly in a few years they will be
very popular. Some varieties are much more hardy than
others. I had one sent to me under the name of Hyakume
that was killed by a freeze at Hitchcock, while another longer
and more pointed kind has never been hurt. I know trees of
this variety in Beaumont that have borne enormously for
fifteen years, though I do not know the name. Experience
has shown that all persimmon trees, as well as pecans, are
peculiarly adapted to close root-pruning, and make enormous,
deep, strong roots the first year. If set in early winter and
well tramped, both will grow freely, even from the tops of
trees cut just at or even a little above where the first or
upper roots of the seedling are emitted, and will make an
astonishing growth the first season. For propagating both
persimmons and pecans on large trees, winter budding, as
described elsewhere, will be found to be particularly adapted,
and much easier and more certain than grafting.

Nurtrs.—For Texas the pecan, of course, ranks first in im-
portance, and doubtless the exaggerated estimates of the
value of a pecan grove as a source of profit have led quite a
number of persons to embark in this business, who will be
disappointed. While this fine nut generally finds a market
at some price, still the vast number of wild bearing trees, the
crops of which are free and gathered by cheap labor, at a
time when little else can be done, will always depress prices.
In some seasons, like the last, values have been so low in
many localities, that thousands of pounds have been left for
the hogs to eat or to rot on the ground. The common seed-
ling pecan cannot possibly pay as an investment, for even
from the best seed inferior and male or unproductive kinds
spring. But those who will plant the nuts on firm ground,
and then, when two years old, graft, or better still, winter-
bud, as described elsewhere, using wood or buds from full
bearing trees of the largest thin-shelled varieties, will very
likely find a good market for a long time. As to enemies, the
frost occasionally blights the blossoms, and the tent caterpil-
lar very frequently strips the leaves from the trees. But, of

APRICOTS, FIGS, JAPAN PERSIMMONS AND NUTS. 79

course, the enterprising grower could easily combat the latter
by spraying.

The English walnut is another nut that ought to succeed
here, but we have no trees, as yet, over five years old, and
they have borne nothing so far. The chief enemy of this nut
is the flat-headed cottonwood borer, but a good coat of white-
wash on the trunks every winter will entirely deter the moth
from laying her eggs on this and all other trees. Of course,
only nuts or close root-pruned trees should be planted, and
on firm ground. The Japan walnut, however, is a very early
bearer, even from the nut, and in five years will make quite a
large tree, and bear full crops. The nuts seem to reproduce
quite true, and this tree also has been proved to take most
kindly to root-pruning. It is almost entirely free from all
insect pests, will likely attain a very large size ultimately,
and make a most ornamental shade tree. But the nuts, being
small and hard shelled, will have little or no market value.

The Japan chestnut has so far failed to set its fruit when
grown from the seed. It is a very vigorous tree, but drops
its blossoms every year here. The almond has not had the
attention it deserves in Texas, but full experiments are being
made, though its value is very doubtful anywhere in the
state, as it blooms very early. The hickory nut and black
walnut would not pay for the nuts, but the man who will
plant a walnut grove from seed, on firm virgin soil, like the
squirrels do, if he has the ground to spare, will, in the end,
have a most profitable investment anywhere. But <‘culti-
vate’’ all nut trees when old enongh to bear with a mowing
machine, for every farmer knows that as soon as pecan trees
are enclosed in cultivated fields and plowed, they cease to
bear. They bloom freely, but the destruction of their surface
roots causes them nearly always to shed.

CHAPTER x1,

The Strawberry and Other Berries.

HIS is by far the most profitable early spring crop for
4 the lower Gulf States, and especially the coast country
of Texas, where conditions of climate and transporta-

tion are so favorable, and where, unlike sections farther
North, a full crop can be grown the following season from
summer or fall planting. In choosing a location for straw-
berries, always select the stiffest and strongest soil, the black,
waxy and yellow clay land being ideal ground for this crop.
Actual experience has shown, that this is one of the few
plants that will do as well or even better here, manured in
the drill, as presently described. Its natural tendency is to
form surface roots, and they should by all means be drawn or
tempted to go down. Broadcast fertilizing mixes the manure
both at the top and bottom and, though it may look unreason-
able, burying the manure in the drill under the plants will
always make the largest fruit. So, instead of scattering the
manure, whatever it may be, broadcast, first break the whole
ground as deeply as possible, and harrow thoroughly until
well pulverized, after which open furrows about two and one-
half or three feet apart by running the plow each way.
Along in this strew the fertilizer, and be sure to put enough.
About half as much will do on the heavy black land, though
it is hard to err in putting on plenty everywhere. If barn-
yard manure is used, and there is no better if enough can be
had, fill the bottoms of the furrows several inches deep.
Then run a bull tongue up and down, thoroughly stirring and
mixing it all. Next, throw the earth back on the furrows
from each side by splitting out the middles, quite deep. Do
not be afraid to leave the ridges well up. After smoothing
off the tops to about a foot wide with a rake, cover the whole
surface, ridges and furrows, quite deeply and evenly with hay

(80)

THE STRAWBERRY AND OTHER BERRIES. 81

or straw, strewing it directly from the wagon, which can be
run down between the rows. Spread the mulch thick enough
to be at least two or three inches deep after settling. Do this
in July or August, so as to catch the summer rains and have
moist ground for planting in September and October. I have
the present season made careful notes, in many fields, of re-
sults from different dates of planting, and find without excep-
tion, that plants set in those two months not only grow by
February quite as large as the two-year-old ones, but produce
just as many and larger berries. The difference in size of
fruit from the two ages alongside was in every instance very
remarkable in favor of the fall-set plants. The great trouble
is that frequently in the fall the weather is so hot and dry
that it is very difficult to make plants live when set. This
comes entirely from a too high temperature of the soil, which
is entirely obviated by mulching as directed. Thousands of
plants are annually sacrificed in August and September, from
ignorance that unless set with a ball of earth at that time, the
earth if clean, is too hot for the plants to take root. But if
mulched in July or August, and a good rain falls to wet the
earth well, it will remain cool and moist the whole fall.
When ready to set, cut all roots back to about one inch,
open a small hole in the mulch and insert the roots, fan-
shape, straight down at least fifteen inches apart. ever
Spread out the roots of any tree or plant, as this induces a super-
ficial system. After setting, pull the straw or hay lightly over
the plant, as a shade, and go on to the next. Treated thus,
and allowed to grow right up through the mulch, a stand can
always be secured with good, strong plants, a month or more
in advance of those who undertake to plant on clean, unpro-
tected ground. Another great advantage of this method is,
that if the mulch has been put on evenly and of moderate
thickness, no further work will be required until the crop is
gone except, perhaps, the pulling up of a few stray weeds
that force themselves up through the mulch in spring. But,
even if this fall mulching be not practiced, no one should
ever neglect this vitally important operation at some time
before the fruit ripens. Sandy, dirty berries are now the

82 THE NEW HORTICULTURE.

rule, and not the exception, at several points, which has re-
sulted in giving this season’s crop a depreciated value of
from 25 to 50 per cent. lower than it would have brought had
mulching been general. It is hard to understand why other-
wise enterprising growers will persist, from year to year, in
flooding the markets with such fruit. They not only hurt
themselves, but also all other growers who do mulch, for
when prices come down for sandy fruit, the clean has to suf-
fer likewise. The matted-row system is another mistake of
many growers, and is responsible for this, as it is really im-
possible to properly mulch plants thus grown. That system
is admirably adapted to the North, where the entire tops of
the plants are winter-killed, and when growth starts in spring
the blooms come early, before the foliage grows too large, so
as to shade the fruit too much, as it will here. Strawberries
grown in the shade will not ship well, being not only soft, but
of inferior quality. The sun should be able to strike all
around every plant, and the berries will then be firm and
bright. Onno crop can be seen more plainly the effect of
liberal and judicious fertilizing than on this. Heavy applica-
tions of cotton-seed meal, or any fertilizer rich in ammonia
alone, will always produce a rank growth of vine, susceptible
to the ‘‘rust,” and soft, insipid fruit. Plenty of potash,
and especially phosphoric acid, are absolute necessities for
firm, high-colored, well-flavored berries. For those who in-
tend to make this a business, it is a matter of the first im-
portance to provide a full supply of new plants every year,
and a bed of sufficient size, rich and convenient to water,
should be set with plants about three feet apart, in February
or March, for runners. If shaded somewhat by a light frame
and brush after June, very little or no water at all will be re-
quired until August, when it should be supplied, if dry, to
compel the plants to throw out new and strong roots, for re-
planting in September and October.

As to marketing, nothing need be said, except that many
growers will persist every year in shipping half-ripe fruit, to
the great depreciation of their crop later on. Prices have
now come down to‘hard-pan, the public is yearly growing

THE STRAWBERRY AND OTHER BERRIES. 83

more critical in its demand for quality in all fruits, and it is
the height of folly for berry growers, when the season is cool
and there is no danger of the fruit spoiling, to try to force
half-ripe, pale and sandy berries on the market. I kept close
watch on the reports from the large cities this season, and
Saw repeated complaints on this subject. The Florida
growers do not do it, and their fruit has steadily maintained
a good price in New York, and has been invariably quoted in
St. Louis and Chicago, the present season, at more than
double the price of Texas berries. The strawberry in the
South is subject to but one disease—the ‘‘ rust,” already al-
luded to—a bacterial one, due to conditions of extreme and
sudden variations of temperature and moisture. While the
Michel has been most seriously affected by this disease every-
where the present season, the old reliable Nunan has not
shown a sign of it, though grown amongst and alongside, and
its plants have averaged double the size of the Michel. As
to varieties, the latter should be entirely discarded for out-
side planting, though, as shown farther on, it can be grown
with great profit under cover. A very careful examination of
many strawberry fields by Mr. E. W. Kirkpatrick, an old
berry grower of North Texas, during the season of ’96, con-
vinced him that the Nunan and Cloud Seedling are by far
the best varieties for South Texas. The latter is a pistillate,
and requires every third row to be planted with Nunan
which has a perfect flower. The Smeltzer is also an excel-
lent shipping variety, but the fruit is inferior to the Nunan
in quality and color.

And now, I would urge all growers to make an experiment
with the Michel, on a small scale, at least, under plank and
oiled cloth covering. While this is an extra-large, early, and
really good eating berry, when the weather becomes warm
and dry it is not a long-distance shipper, and has the very
serious fault, for open air culture, of beginning to fruit in the
fall and early winter. Ordinarily those crops are ruined by a
freeze, and the plants have had their work for nothing, be-
sides being damaged by the checking of their sap when in
motion, which is probably the prime cause for the general

84 THE NEW HORTICULTURE.

epidemic of rust on them this spring. It will be remembered
that we had early and repeated frosts and light ice, several
times last fall, a very unusual thing at that season, and the
Michel plants were in full growth. The question is, Can we
not utilize this quality of early fall and winter bearing? I
would suggest, on a high location, that a bed about eight feet
wide be thrown up well with a plow, after being thoroughly

STRAWBERRY BED, UNCOVERED.

fertilized. On top of this place an ordinary coldframe five
feet wide, made of 1x10 or 12-inch plank for sides, con-
nected by strips about two feet apart, cut rounding, as shown
in the illustration, to support the oiled cloth and shed the
rain. After stretching common white cotton cloth of a good
grade, to make it last it should be thoroughly oiled with a

STRAWBERRY BED, COVERED.

paint brush, or the cloth might be dipped in the linseed oil
and wrung out, and then stretched to dry on the bed. I
have used such a covering for tomatoes, and found it will
protect from a freeze much better than the ordinary frost-
proof cloth sold, or even than glass sash. Of course, the
main point is to keep out a freeze. We have an ordinary
temperature warm enough in winter to perfectly mature

THE STRAWBERRY AND OTHER BERRIES. 85

berries in the open air, but one, or at most two, cold spells
every year spoil the crop. No other variety will fruit early
and out of season, like the Michel, which makes it an ideal
plant for this purpose. I know of no crop that will pay like
it, if treated as suggested, and I predict that in a few years
every enterprising grower will have one or more beds thus
treated, for success then is absolutely certain and good prices
assured. A crop thus grown must of necessity be limited,
and with two markets like Houston and Galveston at hand,
an over-production of fine, ripe fruit would be impossible.
But the balance of the state would be ready to take any sur-
plus. Berries like the Michel, grown on rich ground and
with plenty of room, and protection from cold and beating
rains, would color up handsomely, and always bring a fine
price. The people who buy at that season have the money,
and will pay well for a first-class article. Of course, a con-
tingency of dry weather must be provided against for best
results, and if unable to afford a small windmill, a good hand
force-pump, with ordinary well, will furnish abundant water.
Our wells are always full in winter. It would be well to
water entirely from below, to prevent wetting the fruit.
When preparing the bed, lay a row of common one-inch
drain tiles, one foot long, the full length of it and about eight
inches beneath the surface. Cover the tiles with an inch of
shell, gravel, sawdust or hay, in order to keep the soil from
finding its way between the joints and into the tiles. Or, in-
stead of tiles, two pieces of 1 x 3 heart pine, nailed together
like a gutter, and the edges notched at intervals of six inches,
_ to allow a free escape of the water. This should be inverted,
and laid upon a six-inch plank, at the depth named, and the
end next the well, whether tiles or plank, connected by hose
to the pump. The fruit when ripe need never be wet, which
would greatly improve its appearance and shipping qualities.
The plants should be set not less than fifteen inches apart
each way, and the bed evenly mulched before putting them
out. A strawberry bed of Michel thus treated would be ab-
solutely sure for a paying crop, and the yield from November
to March alone would be something wonderful. The cover-

86 THE NEW HORTICULTURE.

ing (see cut, page 84), which, by the way, should be nailed
fast on one side, and the other tacked to long one-inch cur-
tain-rods, and fixed so as to lap and roll back in all ordinary
weather, could be removed the last of March and packed
away for the next season, and the plank likewise, and both
would answer for a long time.

If northern growers can afford expensive houses, and
steam heating to grow cucumbers, lettuce, etc., by the acre,
surely it will pay to spend the small amount of money re-
quired here to grow a much more valuable product like the
strawberry, and put it on the market during the winter
months.

BLACKBERRIES.—Like the strawberry, the dewberry and
blackberry are perfectly at home around the Gulf coasts, and
in fact all over the South, though many varieties of the latter
are so subject to rust that it pays best to confine ourselves
entirely to varieties like the Dallas. The Mayes or Austin
Hybrid dewberry and Early Trinity blackberry are new and
very promising varieties, that are well worthy of a trial. As
these berries are all rank growers, and sucker very badly in
our long, warm summers, it is all-important to give plenty of
room between the rows, to permit the free use of the plow.
Eight feet between the rows is none too much. As soon as
the fruit is gone, the old canes should be cut out at once, or
by winter they will become so tangled with the new growth
that their removal is very difficult and troublesome. <A good
dressing of bone meal or phosphate will greatly improve the
size of the berries.

The raspberry, gooseberry and currant find the far South
too warm for their perfect development, and these fruits are
of no value there, though some of the black-cap raspberries
are cultivated to a limited extent in the upper portions of
Texas.

I omitted to note above that the strawberry beds should
run north and south, to allow all the plants to have at least
half a day of sun.

CHAPTER XX:

A Review.

Horticulture, published twelve years ago by myself,

because no publisher would bring out what one of them,
after looking over the manuscript, called ‘‘a mess of non-
sense.” When I penned them I little thought I should live
to see even the faintest streak of dawn that would usher
in the happy ‘‘Emancipation” day for the fruit-growers
of the world. Instead of the easy, delightful and profitable
occupation that horticulture should be, when followed in
accordance with nature’s laws, it has now become, through
a strange, unaccountable perversion of those laws, appar-
ently from its very beginning, so burdened with fallacious
theories and costly methods, that to be a horticulturist,
according to the present accepted orthodox teachings, is
to be merely a ‘‘hewer of wood and drawer of water” for
the railroads, the middlemen, the box factories and the
day-laborers. Realizing that all this was coming through
the enormous plantings of fruit trees by the cheap and
easy method of root-pruning, and seeing that the princi-
ples of the New Horticulture, the fruit-grower’s only salva-
tion, were making slow headway through the determined
opposition of nearly all the experiment stations, professors
and many of the largest fruit-growers of the country, about
six years ago I moved to Lampasas, to institute crucial ex-
periments in sod culture. Up to that time root-pruning and
other of its principles were being rapidly adopted by pro-
gressive fruit men, but the one horticultural pill that gagged
even them was non-cultivation. Knowing that this was the
most important principle of them all, I determined to so
sugar-coat it by the exhibition of perfect fruit thus grown as
to induce them to swallow it also, and at the same time

(87)

d his preceding chapters are part of the original New

88 THE NEW HORTICULTURE.

crush the opposition of the so-called horticultural scientists
by three experimental demonstrations on a scale large enough
to convince the most skeptical who were honestly looking for
the truth. Of course, I knew that there were thousands so
joined to their idol of cultivation that they would not be con-
vinced, even though Charles Downing himself should rise
from the dead and denounce it. With this view I set out an
orchard here, and then cast about for my northern experi-
ment station and a man to conduct it fairly. I wanted to
enlist some journal, and finally selected the editor of Zhe
Rural New Yorker; and in order to interest him by the novelty
of the thing, and indemnify him if the venture proved a
failure, I offered to give him outright the plates and copy-
right of the New Horticulture and one thousand copies of the
book, on condition that he set out one thousand fruit trees
in crowbar holes, on his poorest unbroken land, mulching
and fertilizing around each tree and mowing the ground in-
stead of cultivating it. He accepted the offer, though utterly
incredulous of success, for, when he received a model tree, he
wanted to know if I ‘‘really expected a straight stick like
that to grow.” But he faithfully did his part, giving occa-
sional reports in the paper on the successful behavior of the
little ‘‘sticks.” At this, certain of the horticultural scribes
and Pharisees began to hint that he had ‘‘an axe to grind”’
in the sale of the books ; so he promptly turned them and the
New Horticulture over to Zhe Rural New Yorker. After they
were sold, that journal decided not to publish another edi-
tion and returned the plates, etc., to me. Finding from con-
tinued inquiries that there is a growing interest in the New
Horticulture, and feeling, like Ze Rural New Vorker editor,
that any future articles I may write would look as if I also
‘had an axe to grind,” I offered Harm and Ranch the sole use
of the plates free, so long as they keep the book in print. They
accepted my offer in the interest of progress, but, never hav-
ing experimented, leave it to stand strictly on its merits.
With this explanation, I will now return to the New York
experimental orchard, planted largely in apples and peaches,
which has been sucha signal success and excited such general

A REVIEW. 89

interest at the North, that a few weeks ago Mr. E. Van
Alstyne, a prominent fruit-grower and writer, visited it and
made a highly favorable report in Zhe Rural New Yorker of
January 15, concluding with the following language: ‘‘ The
annual growth of new wood was all that one could wish, and
it is good, solid wood, too. The trees are strong and healthy
and will compare favorably with the majority of trees of the
same age anywhere. I see no reason why in the next eight
or ten years this orchard should not return an annual net
income that will equal several times the cost of land and
trees.”” In the same issue the editor remarks: ‘‘ Those were
June-bred trees, planted in crowbar holes and cut back so
that about one foot of stem was left above ground. The
roots were pruned so that not even a stub of a side root was
left. We punched a hole with a crowbar right in a brush-
grown field where no plowing had been done for at least thirty
years. The little trees were put down into the holes and water
and sand poured in, then packed down hard around the root
with a stick. These trees did not receive the attention they
should have had, and they grew slowly at first. I have dug
up quite a number of them to see what they were doing, and
in every case their first effort seems to be a series of tap-roots
which dig straight down into the ground. I have traced
them until I feel sure they reached nearly or quite to the
water level. Later, after the tap-roots are well fixed, the
small feeding-roots come out from below the crown of the
tree, when growth proceeds rapidly.’’

In a former issue of the journal the editor had this to say
about cultivation: ‘‘I have been criticised more or less for
trying what is called the Stringfellow method of handling
trees,—that is, close root-pruning, planting in small holes,
mulching around the trees and mowing the grass instead of
cultivation. Many prominent men warned me in the begin-
ning against these methods, but if I were now to publish
their letters it would make those gentlemen very weary. In
view of the way my own trees have acted, I am unable to
understand just why the scientific men make such fun of
these methods. The fact is, those gentlemen will soon not

go THE NEW HORTICULTURE.

only find it necessary to take a back seat, especially on the
subject of cultivation, but will actually have to stand up.”’
So much for the New York experiment. About the same
time it was started, Mr. W. W. Durham, of Austin, Texas,
agreed also to plant one thousand fruit trees under my direc-
tion asa test of the New Horticulture in the South. The
conditions were identical with the former, being unbroken
natural sod, crowbar holes and close root-pruned trees, mulch-
ing each one, and mowing the middles several times during
the growing season. The orchard is now five years old, and
last August Mr. Durham wrote me as follows: ‘‘My sod
fruit 1s now all gone except a few September peaches. The
Elberta, Family Favorite, Sylphide, Bequett, Carman and
several others were the largest and highest colored by far
that came to the Austin market. A German friend, who has
grown peaches all his life, said he never saw Family Favorite
have such color before. The Driscoll Hotel let my peaches
turn down all the east Texas fruit, on account of fine size,
beautiful color and good flavor. There is an orchard just
across the Colorado River that has eight hundred trees in it,
and Mr. Weaver, the owner, told me they did not bear a
single peach this season, due to the late February freeze.
That orchard was thoroughly cultivated from early spring.”
Here we have absolute proof that the destruction of the
fibrous surface-roots so weakened the eight hundred trees
that they shed all their blossoms; to which cause is also due
the well-known ‘‘ June drop” of cultivated peach trees all
over the country, for who ever heard of ‘‘June drop” from a
fence corner or a back-yard tree ?

I will now close my demonstrative proof of the superiority
of non-cultivation, with a few words on my own sod orchard,
planted at the same time, in the same way, and treated just
as were the New York and Austin experiments ; except that
my trees were set in small, clean circles on Bermuda grass
sod, which has been kept well mowed ever since. From
these trees I shipped fruit to the World’s Fair which the
superintendent of Texas exhibits, Mr. Samuel Dixon, and
Mr. E. W. Kirkpatrick, President of the National Associa-

A REVIEW. gt

tion of Nurserymen, pronounced to be the most beautiful
they ever saw. Such being the general good results of non-
cultivation, before inviting attention to some of the evil
effects of cultivation, no matter how shallow, which neces-
sarily destroys the surface-roots of trees, let us consider for
a few moments some of the peculiarities of those fine, hair-
like little feeding-roots that trees of all kinds, fruit and for-
est, instinctively push to the top of the ground, taking com-
plete possession if allowed, but of which neither fruit- growers
nor horticultural writers take the slightest notice. Cut and
slash them with the plow, cultivator or hoe as we may, back
again they come, if given only a few weeks’ chance, to the
surface, Nature’s kitchen, where she kindly spreads, cooked
by the action of the elements, her choicest food for the mil-
lions of hungry little mouths so eager to partake of it. Alas!
the well-meaning but mistaken fruit-grower, under the delu-
sion that he is thus benefiting his trees, comes along at
short intervals with his infernal machines of tree torture,
tears the whole surface to pieces, scattering the soluble food
for the next flooding rain to carry away to the greedy rivers
and sea, while the patient, long-suffering trees at once go to
work to replace the poor little innocents that man has so
ruthlessly destroyed.

And here let me quote an extract from the Houston
Chronicle of today, February 8, which so well expresses my
own belief for years: ‘‘ Dr. Henry C. Conrad, of the Botani-
cal Division of Johns Hopkins University, after continued
experiments, is convinced that in some form or other plants
and trees have all the senses of animals except hearing. ‘We
have never been able,’ said Dr. Conrad, ‘to discover any
way in which they are susceptible to sound, but in seeing,
feeling and tasting they are certainly developed. The Sun-
dew, a plant which grows in the swamps about Baltimore,
probably knows the sense of taste to a greater extent than
any other. With a single exception,’ said Dr. Conrad,
‘they can recognize light and the direction from which it
comes ; they feel the slightest wound, they discriminate in
taste, they have a sense of direction, whether they are

g2 THE NEW HORTICULTURE.

turned in the right direction or not, and are influenced by
electric currents passing near them.’ ”

Who shall say that this is not all true, or deny that trees
are endowed by nature with some kind of conscious intelli-
gence and feeling? Their actions plainly show it. The
modest, little ‘‘sensitive” plant shrinks at the touch of man ;
all kinds of vines, instinctively, as if they saw, grow toward
and stretch their tendrils to grasp a foreign support ; while
in the crowded woods tree-tops keep away from and leave
room for each other with a kindly consideration that puts to
shame the selfishness of man. Is it incredible that the great
Entity we call God, the “unknown God,” who ‘‘is in all, over
all and through all,” of whom all nature and the universe is
the visible expression, has also endowed the trees, plants
and flowers with some sort of capacity for pain and pleasure ;
and that, if our dull eyes and ears could but be opened to the
mysteries of tree life, we should see their expressions of de-
light over the opening blooms and flowers with which they
decorate themselves in spring, and the golden fruit in sum-
mer, and hear their cries of pain under the torture of the
pruning-knife, the cultivator and the plow? One cannot look
upon the dead and dying fruit trees that abound in all our
orchards, stretching out to heaven their poor, blackened
limbs and yellow, withering leaves in silent protest against
man’s inhumanity to trees, without feeling that they have
really and truly suffered during the long years of such treat-
ment. Buta better day is dawning for so-called inanimate
nature, and, with a view to hasten it, I will next point out
some of the evil effects of cultivation which have forced them-
selves under my observation, since the preceding chapter on
that subject was written, twelve years ago. But, before doing
so, I wish to state that the three sod experiments alluded to
were made intentionally under the most trying conditions,
and also to show that thousands of acres of New England
‘‘abandoned farms,” and hilly as well as rocky locations else-
where, in sections of average rainfall, could be profitably set to
fruit trees, especially apples; though, of course, growth would
not be so rapid as if they were cultivated a few years, until
the trees began to bear, and then put down to a mowed sod.

CHAP TER wx cle

Effects of Cultivation.

sod fruit would keep longer than cultivated, I was
greatly surprised, during my World’s Fair shipments,
at a remark in one of Mr. Sam Dixon’s letters, that, ‘‘ while
all other fruit rots quickly, yours looks like it would keep for-
ever.”” Knowing that all of it was full ripe, I was much puz-
zled, and fell to wondering why my peaches kept longer than
others, and could see no possible reason except that they
had been grown naturally, upon trees whose feeding roots
had never been disturbed, thus enabling them to so perfect
their fruit, combining its sugar, acid and color in one har-
monious whole, as to form a peach immune to rot. So, last
summer I determined to test this theory, so big with possi-
bilities for the fruit-grower, if true, and on the 15th of last
July, the first day of that awfully hot wave that swept over the
country, I shipped by express two baskets of Elberta peaches
to Mr. Williams, of the Practical Fruit Grower, Springfield,
Mo.; two to Mr. Olcott, of American Fruits, Rochester,
N. Y.; two tothe Pacific Fruit World, Los Angeles, Cal., and
one to Mr. J. Horace McFarland, of Harrisburg, Pa.,—re-
questing all of them except Mr. McFarland to return one
basket at once to me at Lampasas. The peaches all went in
perfect condition and were pronounced ‘‘ firm, juicy and deli-
cious,” ‘‘just as fine as if picked fresh from the tree,” Mr.
Poland, of the Pacific Fruit World, declaring ‘‘they were
magnificent, fit for an epicure.’”’ The other three baskets
were returned without opening, the one from California by
some delay, having taken sixteen days to make the round
trip, but all the peaches were still perfectly sound.
Not satisfied with that performance, I closed each basket
on arrival and forwarded it to Harm and Ranch, Dallas, Tex.,

bere for years I have known in a general way that

(93)

94 THE NEW HORTICULTURE.

two hundred and fifty miles distant, where they opened up
still in good order. All those peaches were grown on sod
trees, and if my theory, as to that being the cause of their
wonderful carrying qualities, is not true, then Lampasas is
the most remarkable peach country in the world. But I know
it is true, for our season was very wet and cultivated fruit
rotted just as badly here as elsewhere. But while my peaches
were making these remarkable trips by express in the hottest
weather, cultivated fruit from East Texas and Georgia was
going forward in refrigerator cars and arriving at all markets
in such bad condition that little of it brought the charges.
An associated press dispatch from New York, July 16, read
as follows: ‘*Georgia peaches in heavy receipt. The fruit
develops the brown rot very quickly. Lots of green stuff also
coming, all covered with rot.” Much of that fruit was doubt-
less from the cultivated orchards of J. H. Hale, in which
Mr. J. Horace McFarland was interested, and, if he is my pub-
lisher, I must tell a joke on him. The name of the peaches:
I sent in his basket was not mentioned, so later I got the fol-
lowing letter from him: ‘*The peaches, perfect beauties,
came today. We ate the ripest and put the others in a cool
room. This peach is certainly very beautiful and seems to be
of the Elberta shape and color, but with much more refined
flavor. The flesh is thick, pit small, and it and the flesh part
readily. Mrs. McFarland remarked at once that it would be
a pleasure to can such peaches. What’s the name of this
peach, please ?”’

But I do not blame him for not recognizing it as a true
Elberta, since he had been accustomed only to the shoddy
article. The fact that the skin readily parts from a sod-
grown Elberta is applicable to all sod-grown peaches, and if
dipped a few seconds in boiling water, the skin will slip as
readily as that of a tomato. But it will not part from a culti-
vated peach. Delighted now, and amazed at my success and
its far-reaching consequences, foreshadowing complete
emancipation of the fruit-grower from the grinding refrigera-
tor-car monopoly, and lessening the cost of production so
greatly as to solve forever the problem of profitable market-

EFFECTS OF CULTIVATION. 95

ing of all fruit crops, yet at the same time fearing that pos-
sibly climatic conditions here may have had something to do
with it, I determined to see whether California, with a still
drier climate, could parallel the achievement of my sod
peaches with her cultivated ones under atemperature of 100°.

With this in view, I requested our local fruit-dealer to
buy one or two crates of California peaches from Houston,
ordering that they be sent direct from the refrigerator car on
its arrival there. Accordingly, on August 15, a few days after
the return of my Los Angeles basket, the two crates arrived,
having been taken from the iced carat 7 p. M., and delivered to
the Express Company in Houston at once, reaching here the
next morning. Being notified, I went down and saw the
crates opened, in one of which were five sound peaches, and
seven in the other, the balance all more or less rotten ina
single night. The peaches were large yellow clings, but so
bitter from being picked too green that they were not fit to
eat. I at once sent Harm and Ranch one rotten and one sound
one, who will testify to their condition. Here, then, was the
proof that climatic conditions had nothing to do with the
shipping qualities of my peaches, which went to Los Angeles
and back by express in good order, while California, with
a still drier climate, could not under our high temperature
get her cultivated ones here sound, even in a refrigerator
car with no handling, to say nothing of a return trip. Now,
what was the reason? Plainly, as I said before, either
Lampasas is the best peach country in the world, or else
cultural conditions did it.

But, to demonstate still further that sod fruit is immune
to rot, I smeared rotten peaches from a neighbor’s tree all
over many of mine—green, half-ripe and full ripe—and in not
a single case did the disease ‘‘take ;’’ the rotten mass simply
drying up, leaving my fruit as sound as before. Still not
satisfied, I inoculated green and ripe fruit; the green failed
entirely to ‘‘take,’’ but the ripe ones were slowly infected,
requiring eight days to produce a rotten spot as large asa
pea. Now, what does all this mean to the fruit-grower?
Why, simply that the horticultural millenium has dawned,

96 THE NEW HORTICULTURE,

when fruit can be grown at one-fourth the cost of the old
expensive methods, loaded into plain ventilated cars and
shipped across the continent and back without a single case
of rot! And here I will call attention to the government
investigation now being conducted in California by Professor
Harold Powell, who has been vainly endeavoring to locate
the cause of rot in oranges during transit to the east, the
loss being estimated at over half a million dollars annually,
which he attributes altogether to physical cuts or other dam-
age in picking, though it would not have been one cent had
the fruit been grown on a close-mowed sod.

This could easily be demonstrated with fruit from any
city lawn; but the professors will not do it, for that would
mean a loss of their fat jobs and an endorsement of the New
Horticulture, though this professor is plainly squinting that
way from the closing remarks in his recent report on the
subject, where he says: ‘‘The conditions under which the
fruit is grown, such as the character of the soil, the age of
the trees, the method of orchard management, undoubtedly
exert a wide influence on the shipping and keeping qualities
of the fruit. On this branch of the subject there is little defi-
nite information. We know that the texture and the quality
of the fruit are influenced widely by the cultural conditions,
and it is probable that the susceptibility to decay, the
rapidity of ripening and other factors that influence keeping
quality, are likewise modified. The Bureau is carrying on
investigations along this line.”

Now Professor Powell was in or near Los Angeles at the
time the Fruit World of that city received my Elbertas
alluded to, when I also wrote the editor fully, telling him all
about my theory as to the immunity of sod-grown fruit to
brown rot and of the other experimental shipments made to
demonstrate its truth, and, being then engaged on the same
subject, it is very evident from the Professor’s remarks above
that he read my letter. I will now close this discussion of
cultivation as affecting the keeping qualities of fruits by cit-
ing a remarkable instance of its effect on the apple. I have
a young bearing Terry Winter tree, a favorite Georgia apple,

EFFECTS OF CULTIVATION. Q7

like all my other fruit trees, in Bermuda sod, and wishing to
compare the keeping qualities of my fruit with that of apples
grown on a well-cultivated Terry Winter, I wrote to Messrs.
Wayland and Reigel, large orchardists, of Pomona, Ga., tell-
ing them of the experiments I was carrying on and request-
ing them to send me by express, packed carefully, a few
Terry apples from a thoroughly cultivated tree. They
promptly sent me a small box with ten apples, nicely
wrapped in tissue paper, which reached here on December
10 last, three of which were already rotten. I left them as
they were, except one of the sound ones which I ate, placed
six of my sod Terry in the box, nailed it up and forwarded
it to Professor Connell, of Harm and Ranch, with request to
keep all until they rotted. At the end of five days he wrote
me that all the other Georgia apples had rotted and he had
exposed mine on a table in their hot office to see how long
they would keep. On February g, just two months after, I
received the following letter from Professor Connell: ‘‘ Dear
Sir, I wish to report on the four Terry apples which I have
kept under the most trying conditions of a hot office. All of
the specimens have shriveled badly and two of them are un-
sound, rot having begun at the core and worked outward. I
have twice added moist excelsior to the box to partially sup-
ply moisture, but I am satisfied that the conditions are en-
tirely too trying for any variety to withstand the strain,
because they shrivel up to nothing.”” Now, I had the Professor
make that test to see whether the brown rot bacteria, which
had destroyed the Georgia Terry in that room in five days,
could do the same for my sod apples. The result is a com-
plete vindication of my theory that the conditions in the flesh
of sod fruit are such as absolutely to preclude the possibility
of brown rot development, which always occurs on the skin
first, working inward; for, though my poor little apples grad-
ually withered away under the high, dry, confined tempera-
ture, finally succumbing to decay at the core, they resisted
the brown rot bacteria to the last and died with their armor
whole.

I come now to the second effect of the destruction of the

98 THE NEW HORTICULTURE.

surface-feeding roots, which is to so weaken the trees that
they are unable to resist the disorganizing action of a late spring
freeze and retain their blossoms or young fruit, which all sod
trees easily do. This was plainly demonstrated in the case of
the eight hundred peach trees alluded to previously by Mr.
Durham, and the conduct of all fence-corner and back-yard
fruit trees.

A third remarkable effect of the integrity of the surface
roots is to improve and perfect the eating qualities of all
fruit ; that on trees in uncultivated ground being far superior to
the other, as is plainly shown by the well-known inferiority of
all the highly cultivated California fruit, so beautiful to the
eye, yet so disappointing to the taste. And yet, with her rain-
less summer, that state ought to, and could, grow fruit of all
kinds as perfect in quality as it is in appearance, if her people
would only open their eyes to these plain natural laws of
orchard management.

A fourth effect of cultivation, contrary to the present gen-
eral but erroneous belief, is to decrease the size of the fruit,
where sod trees stand on good soil, or a top-dressing of ferti-
lizer is applied equal to that on cultivated trees. For years,
as is well known in Texas, my sod-pears, though picked from
trees bearing fifteen to twenty bushels, carried off first pre-
mium at the Dallas State Fair. On one occasion three Kief-
fers were weighed by Mr. Sydney Smith, secretary, that
amounted to seven and three-quarter pounds, and Le Conte
twenty-eight ounces each, while my World’s Fair peaches
and plums were among the largest. In further proof, Mr.
F. T. Ramsey, the well-known Austin nurseryman and erst-
while clean culturist, but now a sod man, exhibited at the last
Texas Farmers’ Congress Governor Lanham peaches grown
in a Bermuda sod that measured eleven and one-half inches
around.

A sixth most important effect of sod culture is that it en-
ables all fruit trees to mature their fruit slowly and naturally,
as well as hold on to it tenaciously even in high winds and
after it is fully ripe. My peaches and plums always hang, if
left, a month or more from maturity ; yet it is well known that

EFFECTS OF CULTIVATION. 99

all cultivated stone fruits in the eastern half of the United
States mature their crops within a period of about ten days,
and drop very easily from the trees, while last summer the
papers told us that California lost vast sums by the sudden
and premature ripening of the fruit from intense heat. Is
there any wonder, when the trees had been robbed by deep
and frequent cultivation of the very roots which are so essen-
tial to perfect, natural fruit? But not only does cultivation
thus rush all fruit to premature ripening, but it is, beyond all
doubt, the sole cause of certain pears like the Le Conte,
Clapp’s Favorite and other summer pears rotting at the core.
Before I put my Le Conte orchard, near Galveston, to sod,
they were always thus affected, but never after. There is a
sod Clapp’s Favorite tree near me whose fruit hangs long and
never rots at the core.

I come now to the last and most remarkable of all the bad
effects of the destruction of the feeding surface roots of fruit
trees,—an effect never before suspected by any observer, nor
even by myself, until last summer, and yet so plain that it
cannot be doubted. I refer to the fact that long continued
cultivation has deteriorated or degraded all our fruits, until
many of them are utterly unlike their original types. Some
actually have changed the color of the skin and flesh, like
the Gonzales plum, and all are far inferior in quality and
texture to the same varieties grown continuously on trees
whose roots have not been disturbed. For instance, take the
Ben Davis apple, which, with the Gonzales plum, seems to
be exceedingly subject to this influence. I have often in the
past seen Ben Davis barrels opened here, and have eaten the
fruit, crisp, juicy, sweet—a really good apple. The next week,
perhaps, another lot would be dry, mealy and tasteless. Al-
luding to this fact, last fall, Mr. F. M. Ramsey, of this place,
told me that while on a recent visit to the Boston mountains
in Arkansas, he saw a Ben Davis orchard on a small aban-
doned place that had grown up in brush and some quite large
forest trees, and that he had been greatly surprised to find
the fruit, of which the trees were full, large and of excellent
quality, entirely unlike the dry, mushy Ben usually seen. It

I10o THE NEW HORTICULTURE.

is plain that the great diversity of opinion concerning the
quality of this apple can be accounted for only on the hypoth-
eses of sod and cultivation ; the latter producing the inferior
type of apple which largely predominates in the markets, for
the reason that a large majority of the orchards are butchered
at least once or twice a year, or oftener. That this theory is
true, was also proved by the cultivated Terry apples sent me
from Georgia, to which allusion has been made, the quality
of which was little better than Ben Davis, the flesh being dry,
spongy and insipid, entirely unlike my sod Terry, which are
now, more than two months later, still firm, crisp and of the
highest quality. Howelse shall we account for so marked a
difference in the same variety, similar instances of which are
often mentioned in fruit journals? A still further proof of
the degradation of fruit by cultivation came to-day in Charles
Green’s Rochester catalogue for 1906, in which he advertises
a new type of Baldwin apple for sale, as follows:

‘© At the rear of Charles A. Green’s (Rochester, N. Y.) dwelling
stood a thirty-year-old apple tree, which in every way appeared to be
a Baldwin. The apples were placed in the cellar, and the following
March we were surprised to find them of a far brighter and better
color than Baldwin. The red blush and streaks were brighter and
the yellow portions more like gold than Baldwin. On eating these
apples, we found the quality was far better than Baldwin. We can-
not recall a more tender-fleshed or better-flavored apple. In quality
and beauty it is far superior ; in fact, a better strainof Baldwin. Prof.
L. H. Bailey says that trees of certain varieties bear better fruit than
others, and that by grafting from these peculiar trees we may greatly
improve well-knownkinds. Thisis just what wehave done. CHARLES
A. GREEN.”

And thereby Mr. Green will get his ‘‘foot in it ;” for the
people who buy those trees and cultivate them will find that
they have the sameold Baldwin of to-day, and will come back on
him for selling them improved Baldwins at forty cents a tree,
when he asks only fifteen cents for the old style. Both he
and Prof. Bailey are ignorant of the fact that the destruction
of the surface-roots by cultivation not only deteriorates the
quality and changes the physical characteristics of many
fruits, but is the sole cause of the so-called ‘‘running out”’
of strawberries and potatoes, as well. One has only to look

EFFECTS OF CULTIVATION. Io!

back at the many once valuable, but now worthless kinds, and
eat, as well as compare the color of fruit from cultivated trees
with that of the same variety long in sod, to be convinced
that Mr. Green’s Baldwin tree is a fac-simile of a most re-
markable example of change and deterioration in the case of
the Gonzales plum, originally a fruit of highest quality, but
now so dry and tasteless that in spite of its fine appearance
it is almost unsalable. The proof that cultivation has been
the cause is beyond doubt, and is as follows: Six years ago I
bought from Mr. F. T. Ramsey, of Austin, the original intro-
ducer, and an ultra-clean culturist, a Gonzales plum tree
that had been propagated from trees long under cultivation.
This, after root-pruning and planting in a mowed Bermuda
grass sod, fruited the second and third year, but the quality
was so poor that I top-budded it with the Shiro plum, about
five feet above the ground, leaving all the Gonzales shoots
below. The fourth year it bore again, and the fruit was so
much better that I was greatly surprised. I did not sus-
pect the cause until last summer, when the Gonzales part
of the tree was again loaded with large, beautiful bright
scarlet plums, of such superior quality that I regretted greatly
having top-budded it, even with Shiro, a fine, large yellow
Japan variety, which was also loaded, and I fell to won-
dering what could be the cause of the marked change. Nat-
urally, being a crank on the subject, the integrity of the sur-
face root system presented itself, and I set out to confirm it.
Knowing almost every fruit tree in the town, I went from one
Gonzales to another, and, to my delight, found all the sod
trees loaded with bright scarlet plums of fine quality, like mine,
while all the cultivated ones were a dull maroon-red color and
not fit to eat. Knowing that Frank Ramsey, who has often
been denounced for introducing such an inferior plum, would
be pleased with my discovery, I sent him some of my Gon-
zales at once, with the confirmation of my theory, and here
is his reply: ‘‘Your Gonzales plums came to-day, July 15,
and are typical in size, color and fine quality of the first speci-
mens sent me from the town of Gonzales, and I believe,
as you say, that they grew on hard, uncultivated ground.

Io2z THE NEW HORTICULTURE.

There is one thing sure, I have never seen more beautiful
plums, or tasted better-eating ones than these of yours. If
the sod treatment is the cause, and it seems to be, I am per-
fectly willing for it to have the credit.’’ Those plums had
hung upon the tree, full ripe, for over a month. So much for
apples and plums. As to peaches, I have already shown from
Mr. McFarland’s letter that my sod Elberta was so superior
to the cultivated Elberta he had been familiar with for years
that he did not recognize it. Another curious effect of culti-
vation on the peach is that it increases the size of the seed,
and, in many cases, causes them to split in the peach, —which I
never saw in sod fruit. There is also a remarkable difference
in the effect of shade on sod fruit. It is well known that it
prevents all cultivated peaches from coloring well and greatly
increases their liability to rot ; while on sod trees, peaches es-
pecially, the fruit in the densest shade, which the sun never
touches, is even more highly colored than those in the sun,
nor do they ever show a sign of rot. One more peculiarity
of sod peaches, and I will then leave the subject of cultivation.
It is well known that cultivated ones picked too soon, even
though well colored, will never have the flavor of those
ripened on the tree. Not knowing that this did not apply to
sod fruit as well, when I came to select the Elberta for those
long trial shipments, I was greatly worried over which to pick.
If I took them too hard and green, I feared they would not be
fit to eat, and if too ripe, that they would rot on the long
journey. Finally, I concluded it was better to have them go
in good order, if not as eatable ; so I selected only those that
were well colored but perfectly hard, and with a slight show
of green, not one of which could be dented by the hardest
pressure of the thumb. But, to my surprise and pleasure,
they all ripened up so perfectly that Mr. Poland, of Los An-
geles, said they were ‘‘fit for an epicure;’ Mr. McFarland,
that ‘‘the flavor was most refined;’’ and Mr. Olcott, of Ro-
chester, ‘‘delicious, as fine as if picked fresh from the tree.”
With this most important discovery, I will now pass to a dis-
cussion of blight and other tree diseases.

Chap TERK xxi

Blight and Other Tree Diseases.

developed the most wonderful discoveries. Mysteries that

were dark and inexplicable are now made as clear as day
by the germ theory of disease in the human system, every
form of which is due to the incubation and multiplication of
billions of those mysterious little germs, microbes, bacilli and
bacteria, good, bad and indifferent, that swarm in the air, in our
bodies, and in everything on the earth. With this knowledge,
science is now devoting all its energies to the discovery of the
laws and conditions which regulate and govern these infini-
tesimal creatures in their propagation and relation to the
various diseases of mankind. But, while the investigators who
have turned their attention to man and his bacterial friends
and enemies have made wonderful progress, practically noth-
ing has been done in the pathology of tree diseases beyond
the bare discovery of the bacteria of blight by Professor Bur-
rill, many years ago; while nothing of any practical value at
all has been accomplished by those of our scientific tree doc-
tors who have turned their attention to crown-gall, root-knot
and yellows. But, while the regular practitioners have ac-
complished nothing beyond killing a lot of pear orchards with
cultural methods and scientific cutting-out of blight, disin-
fecting their pruning shears with acids, etc.,—as they did sev-
eral years ago for A. S. Newson, of Galveston county, at an
expense to him of $1,500, with a dead orchard as the result
in one year, and are now doing the same thing for the Cali-
fornia pear orchards, which are being destroyed by blight
also,—I believe, though nothing more than a sort of horticul-
tural quack, that during a careful study of all those tree dis-
eases for the last twelve years, I have really accomplished
something of value, especially in my study of blight. The

fe the pathology of human diseases, scientific research has

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104 THE NEW HORTICULTURE,

two unsolved problems in this disease are: First, Where do
the bacteria of blight come from,—in the case, for instance, of
isolated pear trees far distant from any known case of blight?
I once saw several large LeConte up in the mountains near
Eureka Springs, Ark., and miles away from any other pear
tree, with large dead blighted limbs in the center of the trees,
caused by an attack some years before, but, from neglect on
the part of the owner, never cut out. Now, the authorities
all affirm that such dead wood is the nidus, or harbor, for the
bacteria; yet there stood those blackened limbs among the
other healthy branches, and not a sign of blight that season.
Was the whole air filled with blight germs, in the first in-
stance? If so, where did they go, and why did the tree not
blight again? —The second unsolved problem is, what are the
conditions most favorable to an attack of blight?

Now, while our government and other scientists cannot
tell us where the bacteria usually come from, they are all
agreed that the germs are external to the tree in an original
attack, and do come from somewhere. Witness their state-
ments that blight spreads, that the tender shoots are most
liable to attack, that the bacteria enter the cut ends of shoots,
etc. As to the second problem, they tell us nothing. Now,
twelve years ago, seeing that the phenomena of blight were
inexplicable on the external theory of an attack from the air
exclusively, there was but one other possible hypothesis, —
which is that the bacteria are indigenous to, and in the sap of,
every pear and apple tree naturally, in limited numbers, and
perhaps, under normal conditions, play a specific, useful part
in the life and development of the trees. A contrary supposi-
tion demands a belief in an actual creation of this germa
hundred or so years ago, when the disease first appeared in
New England. But science denies the possibility of spon-
taneous generation or an actual new creation; consequently,
the germs must have been in the trees and developed at that
time as a result of certain favorable conditions of temperature,
moisture, light and electricity. Therein lies the whole prob-
lem of bacterial life.

To illustrate, suppose a man should raise a window-sash

BLIGHT AND OTHER ‘TREE DISEASES. I05

a few inches, and sit with his neck, for instance, exposed to
a cold current of air in winter. Almost certainly, in a few mo-
ments he would begin to sneeze, nature’s danger signal, and
if he remained there a while, would ‘‘take cold,’’ as we call
it; but, really, the man would take nothing. The cold air,
blowing on a limited part of his body, broke up his natural
heat equilibrium, which we call ‘‘health,’’ in the human sys-
tem, thereby furnishing an unexplained condition, highly fa-
vorable to the rapid development and multiplication of the
influenza or ‘‘cold”’ germs in all human beings. But the re-
sult will not necessarily be a ‘‘cold” in the head or neck ; for
the bacteria will develop at the point of least resistance in
the system, and may settle on the lungs, resulting in pneu-
monia or consumption, or they may attack the nervous system
in the form of neuralgia or rheumatism, and often the bowels.
But, again, let a person or a number of them, enter a room
with a hot stove fire, closing all openings, and shortly most
or all of them will also begin to ‘‘take cold.” Here, again,
we find the natural heat condition, or equilibrium, of their
bodies broken up by an abnormal high temperature and ex-
hausted atmosphere; but they ‘‘took”’ nothing, for, had the
room been ventilated and not over-heated, the ‘‘cold” bac-
teria in their blood would have been unable to develop, just
as the brown-rot bacteria could not do so on my Terry apples,
but did on the Georgia Terry, grown under different conditions.

Admitting the above facts as to man, and reasoning from
analogy, is it not also highly probable that bacteria exist
naturally in the sap or blood of plants and trees? It is plain
that there is a marked similarity between the diseases of man
and of trees. We see the quick and fatal work of cholera dupli-
cated in ‘‘fire blight’ of the limbs and leaves of the apple,
pear and English walnut of California, the slow, insidious
methods of consumption in the ‘‘ yellows,” while black-knot,
root-rot, crown-gall and root-knot give perfect counterparts to
the various forms of scrofula.

May we not go still further, and declare that every known
form of mildew, rust and other plant diseases are naturally in
the plants themselves, and, under normal conditions, entirely

106 THE NEW HORTICULTURE.

harmless? That this is true, I can demonstrate by the follow-
ing facts, to which Mr. E. W. Kirkpatrick was an eye witness:
About ten years ago, while ona visit to me, at Galveston, I
took him to Alvin to see the orchards, and at one place the
owner pointed out what was a great puzzle to him. Adjoining
his pear orchard was about one acre in oats, then heading,
and, the season having been very wet and the land flat, the
whole of it was entirely covered with rust, except the turn
rows, or headlands, at opposite sides, both of which had.-also
been sowed in oats, the ground having been burned over and
the seed harrowed-in on the unbroken, virgin sod. The puzzle
which the owner wanted solved was, why was the grain on
the two headlands just as high as on the plowed ground aad
perfectly green, not a spot of rust upon it? He assured us
that he had prepared his land most carefully. Having just
then solved the mystery of blight in my Hitchcock pear or-
chard on the theory of the internal existence of the germs in
the trees, and located definitely the causes and conditions un-
der which they had been able to develop, I saw instantly the
cause of the remarkable phenomenon before us. It was sim-
ply a case of favoring conditions. The continued rains had
kept the roots of the oats on the soft plowed land so saturated
as either to drown out the fine hair-like feeding ones or else
gorge them with excessive moisture; thus paralyzing their
normal action and furnishing just the condition of sap most
favorable for the development of rust bacteria. The firm, un-
broken headlands could not be thus saturated, and the germs
remained dormant, under the law of unfavorable conditions.
I pointed this out to the owner and friend Kirkpatrick, both
of whom saw the truth of it at once. I asked the owner if he
had rolled the ground after planting, and he said that he had
not. There is not the slightest doubt that millions of dollars
are annually lost by rusts, mildews and other bacterial dis-
eases, due entirely to loose, unfirmed seedbeds. All grain
should be gone over as often as possible with heavy iron or
stone rollers, and once as late as practicable in spring.

But, returning now to pear, appleand walnut blight, I will
give a short history of my pear orchard near Galyeston—the

BLIGHT AND OTHER TREE DISEASES. 107

one in which the first outbreak of the disease in South Texas
occurred fourteen years ago. Up to that time there had never
been a case of pear blight within one hundred and fifty miles
of it, distant about five miles from the Gulf of Mexico.
The orchard was ten years old, and in the spring of 1893 the
fifteen hundred trees bloomed like a snow-bank and set an
enormous crop. I knew that the pears should be thinned, but
the trees being so large, and having matured heavy crops of
fine fruit before without thinning, I concluded to let them
alone. The ground had been in mowed sod for two years ;
but, knowing the trees had hard work before them, and ig-
norantly thinking to help them, the whole orchard was lightly
plowed in March and kept absolutely clean until July. The
spring and summer were very dry, which, with the enormous
crops—many trees having over twenty bushels—checked all
growth and sent them to rest as completely as midwinter.
Now here was the first condition precedent to blight the next
year, viz: suspended growth during the natural growing sea-
son. The weather continued quite dry until November, when
good rains fell, and, being in the nursery business, mainly
growing pear trees from the cuttings, I set twenty men to
work, making the cuttings from the early spring growth and
much two-year wood. By January, we had in over one million
cuttings; and, the winter having been mild and wet, stimulated
by it and the heavy pruning, stray blossoms began to show
here and there, and shoots to push from the cut ends of the
limbs, the sap being in rapid motion.

Well, on the night of January 17 the mercury fell to
eighteen degrees, freezing the limbs solid and completely
checking all growth. Here was the second unfailing condition
precedent to a coming attack of blight. I did not know all
this then, nor suspect anything, but three years ago, under
similar conditions here where blight was never known, I pre-
dicted to many persons, in March, that Lampasas would have
a blight epidemic ; and I proved a true prophet, for it came and
killed many trees and is still with us. We had passed through
a year with only twelve inches rainfall; the trees had rested,
as mine had, in summer, and a heavy warm winter rain set

108 THE NEW HORTICULTURE.

the sap in motion, followed on the second of February by a
severe freeze. Had the sap been dormant, no harm would
have been done.

But, to return to my orchard, which, instead of blooming
as usual about the first of March, remained perfectly dormant
until about the first of April. Then in a few days the blos-
soms seemed to break all at once; and later, instead of drop-
ping off as usual, most of them hung on to the young pears
and turned black, though, knowing nothing of blight, I
thought little of it. Heavy rains and still, sultry weather
followed in May, when, it seemed almost in a day, the fruit-
spurs began to blacken and the tender tips of the shoots to
droop, until every one of the fifteen hundred trees showed
more or less signs of blight, though on most of them it was
light and not a single tree died. The ground had not been
disturbed since the preceding summer, and never has had a
root cut since.

As soon as I realized that the dreaded fire-blight had
struck my trees, remembering my experience with the nitrate
of potash twenty-five years before, and its good effect on
vegetable diseases, I applied, in June, a heavy top-dressing
of cotton-seed-hull ashes, containing thirty per cent pure
potash. Ignorantly accepting the orthodox theory of the
efficacy of cutting out, and feeling it my duty to stamp the
disease out if possible, I hired seven men in September and
went over every tree, cutting out every sign of the disease
far below the infected parts, and finishing up the long, tedious
job in December, at a cost of over five hundred dollars.
Now for results. The next spring all the trees again blighted
but not so much as before, due doubtless to the non-dis-
turbance of their roots, entire cessation of pruning and the
free supply of potash. In the meantime I sold the orchard
to a near neighbor, E. J. Biering, exacting from him a
written promise never to plow or cultivate it, and, contrary
to the malicious report that I took advantage of his igno-
rance to unload it upon him, before I would sign the deed I
had him go over the whole place, pointing out the blight and
warning him that it might ultimately kill the trees. But

BLIGHT AND OTHER TREE DISEASES, 109g

being the only bearing orchard of any size in south Texas,
and knowing its previous immense yields, he took the chances
and signed a written exoneration, which paper I still have,
of all blame on my part if the trees died. E. J. Biering is
still living at Hitchcock and will confirm this statement.
That was twelve years ago, and neither plow, cultivator nor
pruning-knife have ever been used upon that orchard since,
the blight having died a natural death. The trees are lap-
ping, though twenty-five feet apart, and will average eighteen
inches diameter of trunk near the ground, and were pro-
nounced by Professor Waite, during his experimental work a
few miles away on the Newson orchard, before mentioned,
to be the finest and largest pear trees in the South. It was
also recently inspected by Mr. Stiles, assistant state in-
spector, who told me that it was ‘‘magnificent, the very
finest pear orchard he had ever seen.”” Now, all these years
it has cost its owner comparatively nothing except to gather
the fruit, the grass having been so dwarfed by decaying
leaves and shade as to require no mowing,—and yet thousands
of pruned, fertilized and cultivated pear trees all around have
been killed by blight.

With this grand, living demonstration of the truth of the
principles of the New Horticulture as applied to this disease,
it is plain that the theory of an external attack of the bac-
teria is false ; for it will not explain such phenomena as the
sudden development of blight on those fifteen hundred pear
trees with not a case of blight within one hundred and fifty
miles, nor the strange fact that they are now all immune,
while blight exists all around them. Nor will it explain the
fact that I sent blighted leaves and twigs at the time from
those trees to E. W. Kirkpatrick at McKinney, where no
blight then existed, and though inoculated freely with a decoc-
tion of the leaves and twigs, not a single one of his pear trees
could be infected. Buta still more remarkable fact against
the external theory occurred here last summer, and one that
I would not mention unless I had an eye-witness like E. W.
Kirkpatrick to prove it. With the owner’s permission, a
near neighbor, I top-budded in 1904 eight limbs of a quite

110 THE NEW HORTICULTURE.

large, badly blighting Bismarck apple tree, with buds from my
healthy sod Terry and Pearmain trees, with just the faintest
idea that shoots thus grown would not blight. To my aston-
ishment, the buds all grew right along among the blighting
Bismarck limbs the whole of last season, making shoots three
and four feet high, and not a blighted leaf or tip. Mr.
Kirkpatrick saw the tree and will testify to the facts, and yet
the scientists are now humbugging the California pear-grow-
ers with the vain hope of curing blight by cutting out the
infected limbs. Of course, for looks’ sake, it is the proper
thing to do; but if they rely solely upon that, it will inevita-
bly be but a few years before the Bartlett pear will be only a
recollection in California.

The same danger threatens their English walnut trees,
many of which have been attacked by blight also. And yet,
with irrigation to keep up a continuous summer growth the
previous season, thus satisfying the tree’s natura] demands
and inducing them to remain entirely dormant during the
winter, and sod treatment to preserve the integrity of the
surface-roots, there would not in a few years be a blighted
fruit tree of any kind in California. Of course, all pruning
of bearing pear trees should cease, as that stimulates a move-
ment of the sap to restore the equilibrium between the roots
and tops, especially if the winter be mild and wet. It must
be especially borne in mind that blight results only from a
severe freezing 1n winter or very early spring under the
above conditions, followed by a complete stagnation of the
sap and subsequent fermentation, and never from the usual
late frosts or light freezes when growth has fully started. In
such cases there can be no fermentation, for growth is imme-
diately resumed and no harm done. The idea of a connec-
tion between a freeze and blight has always prevailed among
fruit-growers who have observed closely, but has been scouted
by our scientific horticultural solons, all of whom have failed
to discriminate between the two kinds of freeze, and thus
understand why all were not followed by blight. I omitted
saying that when pear trees are put to sod (preferably
Bermuda, or other shallow-rooted grass of short growing

BLIGHT AND OTHER TREE EISEASES, a1 ual

season), a liberal top-dressing of muriate or sulphate of pot-
ash should be applied, and annually, for several years, or
until the blight disappears, at least three hundred pounds
per acre of the same. But wherever pear trees cannot be irri-
gated, extra-close mowing in time of drought, and fertilizing
every spring to keep up a fair summer growth must be
resorted to, not forgetting the potash. Of course, in such
seasons, thinning of the fruit, necessary more or less every
year, should be much more severe, though my former or-
chard has never been irrigated or had fruit thinned, but is
now immune to blight.

And, now, a few words as to the various other forms of
disease which attack the roots of fruit trees, such as crown-
gall, root-rot, etc., all of which unquestionably have their
origin in soils exhausted of potash, deeply stirred and satu-
rated, due to continued rains, followed by high temperature.
I have experimented so thoroughly, for years, that I know
this to be a fact, and have demonstrated in my orchard here
again, that diseased trees, if closely root-pruned and planted
on firm ground plentifully supplied with potash, will recover
entirely in a year or so. The scientists all make the same
mistake in reference to these root diseases that they do to
blight, imagining that the germs are external to the trees and
in the soil. There is no such thing as infected soil. I have
repeatedly root-pruned healthy peach, plum and apricot
trees and set them directly in holes from which diseased
trees were dug, placing crown-galls in contact with the stub
roots, and have never been able to infect a single healthy
tree, when the holes were first well supplied with ashes or
other form of potash and trees top-dressed with it afterward
for several years.

I will again state that every form of bacterial disease
attacking grain of all kinds is naturally in the seed, and de-
velops only when the favoring conditions are furnished, such
as a deep, loose soil saturated to excess, and followed by
high temperature. In all the eastern half of the United
States where rains are abundant, the plow should be ban-
ished forever from the small grain fields, sowing the seed

II2 THE NEW HORTICULTURE.

upon the firm, unbroken soil and then thoroughly disking it
in, no matter how weedy; for that places the vegetable mat-
ter just where nature does, in abandoned fields and in the
woods, thus adding to their fertility from year to year. But
after being thus disked in, the ground should be thoroughly
rolled, the oftener the better. Such treatment would ban-
ish entirely from all well-drained soils every form of rust,
mildew and plant blight, by withholding the conditions of
excessive moisture under a high temperature, which facts
plainly show are the ones most favorable and necessary to
their incubation, and without which they are just as powerless
to develop as the yeast germ is in dough, placed in an ice-
box or a hot stove.

CHAPTER XxTir

Pruning, Insects, Fertilizing and Influence of Scion on the Stock.

that form the initial growth of the apple and pear, in

order to compel them to broaden out their heads, no
further pruning will be required for those trees, especially
after they come into bearing. But the almost universal idea
among advanced fruit-growers seems to be that it is quite im-
possible to overdo pruning of the peach. Now, the fact is,
but for the continuous cultivation usually given the peach or-
chard, thus forcing out an unnatural growth of long canes,
there would be no occasion to go to the expense of pruning
at all. After setting out a peach tree, the top should be cut
back to about one foot and all shoots allowed to grow for a
month or two, when the strongest and straightest should be
selected and all the others cut away. By fall, such a tree, if
let alone, will have made a well-rounded, bushy head, branch-
ing evenly all around right from the ground up. The peach
is naturally a bush, not a tree, and loves to have its entire
body shaded, and will need no further pruning until it comes
fairly well into bearing, when, in order to bring it to the
proper shape for the economical gathering of the fruit, the
whole head should be sheared off level about six or seven feet
above the ground. I know that the prevailing idea is that a
tree allowed to grow naturally up to the third or fourth year
would be a mass of branches, and overbear. This is not true,
as any one can prove, for, having abundant wood, the peach
tree will distribute its fruit-buds evenly all over the shoots at
intervals of six inches or more, and not concentrate them con-
tinuously, as it will where a large part of the wood has been
removed. The top-pruning, advised above, should be done
when the fruit is as large as marbles and not before growth
starts, as that would allow the tree to renew its head from its

B teat 10 cutting back, for several years, the long canes

(113)

II4 THE NEW HORTICULTURE.

strong initial spring growth. The orchard should then be let
alone, mowing occasionally whatever growth comes, or it
could be put down to Bermuda or other lawn grass. Thus
treated, all peach trees will broaden out and cover themselves
with short fruit-spurs a few inches long, and somewhat longer
ones on top; but the check of bearing and from the mowed
sod will prevent the annual growth of long, sappy canes,
which on cultivated trees must be cut back to prevent over-
bearing, as well as keep the trees from growing so high as to
compel the use of ladders in gathering the fruit. Why ex-
haust the vitality of the trees, as well as incur expense, by
growing useless wood? Of course, after a season of exces-
sive rains the next year thinning of the fruit will be neces-
sary,—in fact, could be practiced with benefit every spring ; but
it 1s Surprising, where the natural equilibrium between the
tops and roots of a peach tree is maintained, what heavy
' crops it will mature to gocd marketable size on good sp et
without thinning at all.

The Edwards’ Elberta seedling in a neighbor’s yard here,
standing on ground never broken, last year bore four meas-
ured bushels of fruit, and from it I selected the peaches that
went to Los Angeles and back, and which the editor of the
Pacific Fruit World pronounced to be ‘‘magnificent.” The
accompanying illustration also shows tworows of Elberta that
are twenty two years old and have not been pruned, cultivated
or fertilized for the last eight years. I am standing by the tree
that grew the peaches that went to Rochester, N. Y., and
back, but, as the past summer was very wet, it will be noted
that the top shoots have pushed unusually high. However,
whenever the trees get so high that the fruit cannot be gathered
from the ground, the tops should be again cut back. Those
two rows ought to have the fruit thinned this season, but the
owner says, ‘‘ They have never laid down on me yet and they
will have to stand it.’’. I have watched those trees six years
and never saw a rotten peach on any of them. The ground
is perfectly bare beneath, all grass having long ago been
shaded out and replaced with the decaying leaves, under
which, if the earth be scratched ever so little, the feeding

‘NHGUO GOOD NI NOVA ANY “A ‘N ‘YHLSHHDOWN OL INAM HOIHM LINYA AHL ANOd LVHL VLUYAATH GOS AHL

116 THE NEW HORTICULTURE.

roots will be seen. That photograph was taken October 14,
and shows how densely a peach tree will cover itself with foliage
in the course of years if let alone; and yet the very finest
fruit comes every year from the interior of the trees, where on
cultivated ones it would always rot.

I will now make a few remarks on, and some suggestions
as to how best to combat insects and other pests. Among
the latter, rabbits and mice are the most destructive, especially
where snow covers the ground in winter. Undoubtedly the
safest protection would be wire cloth or netting, the lower
edge sunk in the ground; but an infallible protection here
is a thick coat of Indurine, or cold-water paint, applied
for about eighteen inches up the trunk, scraping away the
soil and daubing it well around the collar. Dissolve two
ounces of bitter aloes in a little hot water and stir it well
into the paint, and for mice add several ounces of Paris
green. Five pounds will make nearly a gallon, and when
well applied it will stick perfectly for a year and no rabbit
or borer will ever touch the tree. As to insect pests, the ex-
periment stations give the common formulas in their bulletins,
which are otherwise of little value, being mostly old straw
threshed over for years; but thus far no effective preventive
against the curculio and plum gouger have been found, jar-
ring the trees being about the best. But that is tedious, and
last year I hit upon a remedy that completely protected all
my fruit. Knowing from experiments with lime on vegetables
that all insects have an aversion to white, and also to the
smell of carbolic acid, I slaked one peck of strong rock lime
and then added fifty gallons of water, after which I mixed
five pounds of the cold-water paint, adding water little by
little and stirring thoroughly all the while until the mass was
a dough, resembling perfectly one made of flour. That is
the only way to mix that paint, for if poured into water, or
much water is poured on the paint, it is impossible to make it
mix. I then added more water to the paint, stirred well and
poured into the barrel, again stirring thoroughly. Having a
bottle of creoleum handy, I poured about a gill into the
barrel, which gave the wash a strong smell of carbolic acid,

PRUNING, INSECTS AND FERTILIZING. LIU y/

of which creoleum is a compound. The object of the paint
was to make the lime wash adhere better. I then kept close
watch on the young peaches and plums for the half-moon cut
of the curculio and the round puncture of the gouger, which
usually begin their work when the fruit is about as big as a
large green pea, never before that. Finally, seeing what
looked like a gouger’s mark, I strained my wash, stirring well
through a thin cheese-cloth, and sprayed all my peach and
plum trees, aiming to get it on the fruit especially. I could
smell the creoleum (carbolic acid would doubtless have done
as well) very strong, and the young peaches and plums showed
the white plainly. Of course this treatment was a bluff en-
tirely, not being poisonous, but the appeal to the eye and
nose was most effective, for a daily examination showed no
punctures of any kind ; but when the fruit was about the size
of a large marble or small hickory-nut, I sprayed a second
time. Though we had several rains, the wash adhered well,
some little showing on the apricots when ripe, though not on
any of the later fruit. That was all I did, and, though all
my neighbors had their fruit badly damaged, I never found
a wormy peach or plum. Possibly a white wash with more
acid might have been effective with one application. This
season I will conduct more careful experiments, and hope all
fruit-growers will do the same. The same treatment applied
while apple trees are in blossom should be equally effective
against the codling-moth.

As to fertilizers for the orchard, some good brand should
be used freely the first year it is put to grass, unless the
ground is naturally rich, for all plowed and cultivated trees
are without any true surface-root system. Of course, the grass
will quickly fill the upper unoccupied layer of the soil, thus
robbing the tree roots below, the first season. That is the
trying time on all old or young cultivated orchards put to sod,
until the trees take full possession of the entire surface with
their fine hair roots, as all forest trees do. If a serious
drought occurs at that time, by all means thin the fruit se-
verely, especially on trees that were planted with long roots.
In such cases, those that were close root-pruned when set

118 THE NEW HORTICULTURE.

will show a vast superiority in resisting drought. In fact,
there was a time when I hesitated to advise the putting of
trees planted with long roots, spread out in large holes, down
to grass, but I have seen several orchards thus treated and
well fertilized that are doing exceedingly well. Anyhow, it is
better that than have the trees die in eight or ten years, as all
thoroughly pruned, plowed and cultivated ones do all over the
southern half of the United States. In higher latitudes, with
short and cooler summers, such treatment is by no means as
injurious to the life of the trees, but does everywhere greatly
deteriorate the quality of the fruit and render it much more
liable to rot.

INFLUENCE OF SCION ON THE STOCK.

I will now close this chapter with a few remarks on the
reciprocal influence of the stock and scion as affecting the
longevity of fruit trees, especially the peach and apple. The
general opinion among fruit-growers is that grafted and
budded trees are shorter-lived than seedlings. This is un-
doubtedly true, and due to the fact that every seedling prefers
its own wood to that of another, especially a peach. This is
plainly shown where a shoot from the stock is allowed to
grow, for it will not only rob and check the growth of the
scion, but generally in a few years actually kills it. While
that is well known, the opposite of this, though true, is not
well known, which is that if the scion or tree be planted deep
enough to allow it to strike roots it will in a few years estab-
lish itself entirely on them and ultimately kill the stock with
all its original deeper roots. Of course, that will leave the
tree merely a shallow surface system, within easy reach of
the plow and cultivator, resulting in a gradual weakening
of the tree, until finally during a severe drought, and when
loaded with fruit, it fails and dies. That is undoubtedly the
cause of the early death of thousands of peach and apple
trees when they should be in their prime. The lesson of this
is that all budding should be done at least eight or ten inches
above ground, to allow the point of union to remain above the

INFLUENCE OF SCION ON THE STOCK. I1g

surface after planting. In the case of apples, the method
known as ‘‘whole root” stocks is consequently the worst
possible form for a long-lived tree. By using short cuts and
setting the root grafts deep, the young tree will establish it-
self on its own roots the first season as well as from the piece
of root, which must be cut entirely away, also all the
lateral ones, when the young tree is planted in the orchard.
This will give a clean, close root-pruned apple, free from all
subsequent suckering. When varieties are known to be weak
growers, they should be propagated entirely by high budding
on strong stocks as described above. All ‘whole root”
grafted apple trees should be root-pruned as closely as pos-
sible, cutting back to the body, and planted deep to induce
the scion or tree to strike its own roots as low as possible.

Since writing this chapter, I noticed today, April 2, that
the curculio are attacking my plums, which have just shed
their blossoms and are very small. Last year they appeared
later, and it would seem to be the safer plan to spray plums
just before the blossoms drop. Peaches have not been
touched.

CHAPTER Qexiy:

Tree Breeding and Origination of New Fruits.

horticulture, I propose to do it along natural lines en-

tirely, leaving the field of plant jugglery and intentional
hybridizing to Mr. Burbank, who has proved himself an
adept in the business. However, it is much to be regretted
that his successes have been confined almost exclusively to
the least important of the tree fruits, the plum, nor has he
even in that line yet produced an all-round kind equal to
many of the old European varieties, all natural seedlings, or
to the Botan and Burbank, both imported natural Japanese
seedlings, also the latter having been named by Professor
Van Deman in honor of Mr. Burbank. In fact, while appar-
ently well adapted to the dry climate of California, nearly if
not all of Mr. Burbank’s plum creations have proved a dis-
tinct disappointment in the eastern half of the United States,
and most of them a downright failure. I have fruited a large
number myself and seen, as well as eaten, others; but for
beauty, health, vigor, productiveness and quality when grown
on sod, I have found none of them nearly equal to the old
Burbank and Botan. In quality, Botan, or Abundance as it
is often called, has long been considered the Japanese plum
‘« par excellence,” cultivation seemingly having little injurious
effect, but it is a matter of common knowledge that the cul-
tivated Burbank is now a plum of inferior quality. Having
planted two nursery-grown trees here in my sod orchard six
years ago, I was so disappointed the second year that I top-
budded one with several kinds of apricots, but now, like the
Gonzales, the fruit on the other tree has been so improved
in quality by the preservation of its surface roots that I am
sorry for the change. But while Mr. Burbank has had a
large measure of success with the plum, it is a remarkable

ic discussing this most interesting and important phase of

(120)

BREEDING AND ORIGINATION OF NEW FRUITS. I2I

and perplexing fact that, so far, he has been entirely baffled
in all his efforts to produce an apple, peach, pear or apricot
that would compare with the hundreds of old standard varie-
ties of those fruits, all chance seedlings, which Nature in her
playful, kindly moods scattered here and there all over the
country, in old fields, fence-corners, back yards and other
out-of-the-way places, apparently in a spirit of fun, to chal-
lenge our admiration, tickle our palates and yet mock all our
efforts to equal them.

Wipe from our catalogues all Nature’s apples, and what
have we left? Only Peter Gideon’s ‘‘Wealthy,’’ grown by
him, but yet a natural seedling. Next cut out her peaches,
and that industry would so completely disappear that even
a single ‘‘cobbler’’ would be an impossibility. In pears we
would fare just as badly, while if any hybridizer ever grew
an apricot of any value I never heard of it. But having be-
come accustomed to these most astonishing and inexplicable
facts, we cease to wonder, and yet when we stop to think of
the amazing strides of recent years in all the other arts and
sciences, the wonderful discoveries in light, sound, elec-
tricity, medicine, machinery, printing and a hundred other
things, the horticulturist must hang his head in shame, for
even the achievements of a Burbank, in practical value, sink
into utter insignificance beside them. Wipe out all that he
and the many other meritorious, though less known workers
in the field of scientific experimental hybridization have done,
and it would not create a ripple of excitement in the horticul-
tural world, so lavishly has Nature showered upon us from
her hidden store the beautiful and delicious fruits that now
fill the pages of our catalogues to repletion.

But, while others may not have worried in the effort to
find out just how Nature worked these fruit miracles in the
past, and is still working them like a juggler right before our
eyes, and yet we fail to ‘‘catch on,” it has worried me be-
yond measure to see her stamp her seal of superiority upon
some old chance seedling that happened to escape notice,
and lo! a Baldwin, Spy or Jonathan apple, or an Elberta
peach springs up to astonish the world by its excellence,

122 THE NEW HORTICULTURE.

while a Burbank will fruit ten thousand trees or more and
find not one worth preserving. But somehow I have always
had faith that Nature would some day take me into her con-
fidence and impart this secret, as she has the other great
truths of the New Horticulture.

Now I believe she has rewarded my patience, and only
a few days ago, and this is how it happened. A gentle-
man from the adjoining county of McCullough called to see
my sod orchard, and, noticing seven kinds of apricots grow-
ing on the same tree, began to tell me about a wonderful
apricot near the town of Brady, where he lived, of which the
history is as follows: Seventeen years ago a neighbor no-
ticed a little seedling with only three leaves, standing on the
bare ground near the front door, and, thinking it was some
kind of a fruit tree and would be tramped to death, he picked
up a small stick, pushed it down carefully under the little
waif and carried it, dirt and all, around to the side of the
house, setting it again in the hard, unbroken virgin soil.
The baby tree, appreciating the kindness, grew off rapidly ;
and now, with not a single root ever cut, no fertilizing, prun-
ing or thinning of the fruit, that tree has a spread of thirty-
five feet, is thirty feet high, practically a forest tree, bears
more or less every year and generally full, as much as fifteen
bushels having been taken from it one year. The fruit is
large and beautiful, averaging six inches in circumference
and many reaching eight inches, while the quality is excel-
lent. This was his description after knowing the tree for
years, and he further told me that cuttings had been given to
Mr. Ramsey, of Austin, and other nurserymen for propaga-
tion under the name of the Sheridan apricot. Of course, I
listened to all this with intense interest, and when he got
through, by some sort of mental suggestion or what not, I
seemed to hear the words, ‘‘That’s the way she does it,”
and the secret of Nature’s skill flashed upon my mind in an
instant. Now it may be all a fallacy, but the more I think of
it, the more certain it appears that the hidden puzzle of how
Nature grows her fine fruits has been solved.

Of course, the scientific hybridizer will pooh-pooh, for

BREEDING AND ORIGINATION OF NEW FRUITS. 123

the process is too easy and simple and will largely eliminate
him. All that is necessary will be to furnish the exact con-
ditions under which Nature grew that apricot tree, practi-
cally the same under which all chance fruit seedlings have
been grown; viz., first, a firm, compact seed-bed, breaking
only ground enough to plant the seed, if virgin soil all the
better. Second, absolute preservation of the entire root sys-
tem of the tree, and possibly of the tops also, thus maintain-
ing the natural equilibrium between the two. Liberal ferti-
lizing and water in severe droughts would likely aid by giving
the seedling a chance to do its best. As to seed, Nature has
no choice, but must take what man or the birds cast aside,
or what drops from the trees, all of which have been de-
graded by cultivation and the influence of inferior stocks, as
outlined by Charles Downing in the following extract from
his great work :

‘* But there is still another reason for this habit, so perplexing to
the novice, who, having tasted a luscious fruit, plants, watches, and
rears its seedling, to find it, perhaps, wholly different in most re-
spects. This is the influence of grafting. Among the great number
of seedling fruits produced in the United States, there is found occa-
sionally a variety, perhaps a plum or a peach, which will nearly
always reproduce itself from seed. From some fortunate cireum-
stances in its origin, unknown to us, this sort, in becoming improved,
still retains strongly this habit of the natural or wild form, and the
seeds produce the same. We can call to mind several examples of
this: fine fruit trees whose seeds have established the reputation in
the neighborhood of fidelity to the sort. But when a graj/tis taken
from one of these trees, and placed upon another stock, this grafted
tree is found to lose its singular power of producing the same by
seed. The stock exercises some as yet unexplained power in dissolv-

ing the strong natural habit of the variety, and becomes, like its fel-
lows, subject to the laws of its artificial life.”’

Now if Nature in her grand fruit creations, thus handi-
capped (for all fruit trees are now grown on other roots than
their own), has yet been able to accomplish horticultural won-
ders far beyond the dreams even of a Burbank, what perfec-
tion might she not have attained had all her chance seedlings
been grown from an Elberta peach, or a Baldwin apple, or
other fine variety on its own roots and on unbroken
ground ? Just how far the latter conditions are determining

124 THE NEW HORTICULTURE.

factors in the general characteristics of the future tree grown
from such seed, we can not tell, but the evidence adduced is
unanswerable, that quality and brighter color of the skin are
the result of such conditions, while heredity, cross-fertiliza-
tion and other influences doubtless determine the size, shape
and season of ripening.

For instance, we have seen the outcome of chance seed
on virgin soil in the Brady apricot, the Gonzalez plum and
the Baldwin apple, as restored by Mr. Green to its original
perfection ; but suppose those three trees had originated on
deeply dug garden soil and been cultivated continuously
from year to year, would they have turned out to be the
same fruits? Plainly not, else the plum and apple would
never have changed their bright scarlet and golden color to
a deep, dull red, or largely lost their good eating qualities
under cultivation now. By all means, let every fruit-grower
try these interesting and important experiments which re-
quire no scientific skill or knowledge of the principles of tree-
breeding, planting seed of selected fruits on firm soil and
letting the trees alone, as well as putting even a single one
of our finest fruits on their own roots, as suggested in the
chapter on ‘‘Scion and Stock” and planting the seed. For
their encouragement, I will close this chapter with a striking
instance of success here in Lampasas. A lady friend, during
a visit to her old home in Georgia six years ago, ate a large
white clingstone peach known there as the ‘‘ White Eng-
lish,” fine for preserving. Wishing a tree for that purpose
and thinking it would reproduce itself, she saved the seed,
and on her return planted it in her back yard on virgin soil,
digging a small hole with a garden trowel. It came up and
has borne fine crops every year since it began to fruit, of
extra large yellow freestone peaches, just like Elberta except
longer in shape and ripening just after it. Here is what Mr.
Sam Dixon, our superintendent at the World’s Fair, said of
it: ‘*The ‘Cauthen’ peach attracted the admiration of the
Exposition officials and was photographed whole and in sec-
tions.” The tree has never been cultivated, being in a chicken
yard, nor ever pruned until this year, when the lower branches

BREEDING AND ORIGINATION OF FRUITS. 125

which rested on the ground were cut away. Shall we not
have to go back to nature and learn from the squirrels, who
beat Mr. Patterson growing walnut trees, for this lady planted
her peach seed just as they did their walnuts.

’

CHAPTER xy.

Gathering, Marketing and Storing Fruit.

WILL now make a few suggestions to those who are with-

| out experience as to marketing a sod peach crop, drawn
from the lessons learned last summer through my ship-
ping experiments, and also from my success twelve years ago
in shipping about nine thousand bushels of pears in a single
season to northern and western markets, all from a mowed
sod. I would build my packing-shed with water-proof roof
and sides, extending to within four or five feet of the ground,
closed at the ends, with wide door in each to admit wagons to
pass through. As my experiments showed that sod-fruit can
be picked while yet hard if well colored, and ripen up a good
eating peach, the pickers should be instructed to gather care-
fully all such fruit, as well as that full-ripe, which should be
emptied gently from the baskets on padded tables. The pack-
ers should each have two crates before them, and every peach
when picked up should be gently pressed with the thumb, a
direction never given to handlers of cultivated fruit, for it
would cause rot, but not on a sod peach. If it yields at all,
showing ripeness, pack it in one of the crates, while all the
firm ones should go into the other. Don’t be afraid such small
dents will show or make a sod peach rot, for as a test I sent
some such fruit all the way to Rochester in good order. All
the ripe crates or baskets should go to state and local markets
or to the cannery and evaporators, while the firm ones are for
car-load shipments. Nail up all crates the same day the fruit
is picked, but allow them both, hard and soft, to stand over
night in the packing-shed to cool. The next morning, before
day, the sooner the better, load on spring-wagons, never
without springs, and off to the market or depot. With large
crops where wagons must run all day, cover the crates with
two widths of matting sewed together, and strong strings tied

(126)

MARKETING AND STORING FRUIT. I27

to the four corners to fasten it down. Matting shades with-
out heating like a tarpaulin. But never ship peaches the
same day they are picked. See that your ventilated car
is left with both doors open that night to cool; pack as
quickly as possible in the morning, closing the door at
once and opening the ventilators at each end. That is just
how I treated the many car-loads of ripe sod LeConte pears,
went with them to Chicago and saw them opened up in per-
fect order at three o’clock the last day of July, the fruit as
cool as when it started. The cars being double-lined and the
pears cool when packed, the slight rise of temperature dur-
ing the day was again lowered at night by the current of cool
air passing from end to end through the ventilators.

The peaches that made the record-breaking trips last sum-
mer were taken from the trees before sunrise. There is not
the slightest doubt that sod-grown peaches picked and treated
as described, could be shipped in ventilated cars all over the
country for ten days with perfect safety. They will, moreover,
ripen up naturally, be of far better quality, and stand up
much longer than any cultivated fruit from refrigerator cars.
Of course sod peaches would behave as well, or even better
in refrigerator cars, and it would pay to use them in years of.
excessive production, for, if regularly iced, I believe they
would hold perfectly for thirty days. But such a thing as over-
production would be but an ugly dream of the past, for once
the buyers were assured of honest packing and peaches that
would open up in perfect order, the entire crops everywhere
would be sold upon the track, at prices that would pay the
grower a good profit, owing to vastly decreased cost of pro-
duction, and yet leave the buyer a very large margin also. So
much for sod peaches, by far the most difficult of the larger
fruits to market fresh, yet asafe and easy job compared to that
on cultivated trees, which, owing to loss of sustaining feed-
ing-roots, is rushed by the heat to sudden and often premature
ripening, usually not more than ten days to a given variety,
after which it drops.

The plum, however, is much more easily handled ; from
sod trees they can be picked when the first color shows, and

128 THE NEW HORTICULTURE.

ripen up with as good quality asif left on the tree, and will
also hang tenaciously to the stem when ripe. Plain venti-
lated cars would carry them across the continent and back in
good order. The sod pear is much like the plum, but can be
picked even earlier. I have had LeConte windfalls, little
more than half-grown, if placed in a box and closely covered,
ripen up to excellent quality. This, however, does not apply
to Kieffer, which must be fully mature and well colored before
gathering. With this variety of pear the secret of good qual-
ity is thorough maturity and a close, confined atmosphere.
Never lay on open shelves to ripen, but pack in bulk and
cover well, and it will come out a juicy and delicious fruit.

I will now give some interesting experiments made on a
small scale with apples last year, and some now in progress,
to test the keeping qualities of those grown on trees whose
roots have not been disturbed. In November, 1904, I picked
apples so grown, packed them in a box, placing it under my
house, which is elevated above the ground. It was covered in
freezing weather with hay to protect it, and on the 7th of
April, 1905, they were all perfectly sound, and Professor Con-
nell, editor of Farm and Ranch, pronounced the fruit excel-
lent. But I was not satisfied, for the apples were rather dry
and slightly shriveled from loss of moisture. The question
then arose, how to prevent this and how to keep the fruit
cheaply in the grower’s hands through the winter, with qual-
ity unimpared, and have it come out in spring with capacity
to hold up, a sound, good eating apple, until sold. That this
is hard to do with cultivated fruit kept at a low temperature
in cold storage is plain, for much of the fruit now, March 29,
exposed for sale, shows the bad effects of too low temperature,
the skin in places having the appearance of scald, after which
rot quickly follows.

But, as I said, pondering last fall over this problem of
carrying apples through the winter cheaply, which must be
done if Texas or the South is ever to go into the business on
a large scale, all at once one day, I was carried back on mem-
ory’s wings. nearly sixty years, and lived over again events
that occurred when I was a little boy at a large boarding

MARKETING AND STORING FRUIT. 129

school in Virginia, my native state. There were quite a num-
ber of large apple orchards in the country around, two of
which were on very rocky hillsides covered with grass, and,
being only about two miles from the school, it was a common
thing for several boys to club together and buy one or more
bushels of apples at twenty-five cents a bushel. dig a large,
deep hole ona hillside in the woods, then cover the bottom
with dry leaves, on which the apples were poured from sacks.
When about two-thirds full, we drew in u good lot more of
leaves, after which the hole was filled with soil, tramped
firmly and rounded up to shed the rain. This primitive cold
storage plant went by the name of an ‘‘apple den,” and when
finished was top-dressed again with leaves to hide it and left
with the utmost confidence born of experience, that late in
winter and early spring, when apples were scarce, we would
find ours all safe and sound. Nor were we ever disappointed,
for when we opened a small hole on the lower side, there
would be the big red apples smiling at us, and what a delight-
ful odor and flavor! Once opened, we would go every few
days, fill our pockets and stick a wad of straw in the hole un-
til the next visit. I remember well that toward the last, some-
times, heavy rains would wash the soil down among the apples
so that often they were so covered with dirt, when dug, that
they had to be washed before eating ; and yet it was a rare
thing to find a rotten apple.

Now, there was my first experience with sod fruit, repeated
every winter regularly for five years, with the same results ;
and little did I think that it was destined to get me into the
fight of my life nearly sixty years afterward. So when, last
November, the recollection of those miniature cold-storage
houses came back to me, the secret of the long-keeping qual-
ity of the fruit was plain, and it occurred to me to play school-
boy once more, and see what my sod apples here would do.
Accordingly, I dug a hole under my house in the moist earth,
about eighteen inches deep, covered the bottom with hay, laid
one dozen Terry Winter apples upon it and a piece of stiff
cardboard on the apples, after which I filled the hole with
loose earth to keep them from freezing. That was in Novem-

I30 THE NEW HORTICULTURE.

ber, and an examination today, March 2g, shows every one of
the apples to be not only plump and sound, but of a delicious
flavor that carries me back to the ‘‘apple dens” of yore. In
view of this result, why could not small growers, everywhere
over the country, store sod-grown apples in earthen banks of
twenty or more bushels, just as potatoes are kept, the moist
earth preventing all shriveling, and imparting a most delight-
ful quality? But still another suggestion presented itself last
fall, when I buried those apples. If sod fruit, sixty years ago,
kept so well in moist earth, why not place the moisture in the
package, whether box or barrel? So, to test the matter, I
soaked a small box in water and placed more Terry in it, dip-
ping the apples also in water, and nailed it up tight, after
which it was covered with loose dry soil to prevent freezing.
Just as I expected, they are now as sound and fine every way
as the others,—in fact, cannot be told apart ; and all of them,
box and earth stored, refuse to have anything to do with
the brown rot bacteria ; for, though I inoculated one of each
lot in three places, three weeks ago with a rotten apple taken
from a public fruit-stand, not a single one ‘‘took.”’ But three
perfectly sound-looking apples from the same stand, inocu-
lated at the same time, did ‘‘ take” in every place the second
day, and all rotted quickly thereafter.

Now, while these experiments have been on a small scale,
it takes only one feather to show which way the wind is blow-
ing; as it took but one falling apple to suggest the great
law of gravitation, and one boiling kettle the power of steam.
So these few apples demonstrate, just as surely as a hundred
bushels, that the conditions of the flesh in apples grown with
surface roots entire are such as to absolutely prevent the de-
velopment of the brown-rot bacteria. Of course, they will ul-
timately break down under the universal law of decay. The
second important fact shown is that, to afford such immunity
to sod apples, it only requires, at a guess, a temperature of
about fifty degrees, while with cultivated fruit it must go
nearly to the freezing point; the result of which is to so dis-
organize the tissues of the skin that when exposed to a higher,
open-air temperature, the effect known as ‘‘scald” or a dark

MARKETING AND STORING FRUIT. 131

softening of the surface follows, and the apple quickly decays.
In view of these facts, why could not every large sod orchard
have its own cheap, double-walled board storage-house, with
chaff or sawdust between the walls and overhead, and a wide,
double-lined door at each end for ventilation and chilling, to
be opened on favorable occasions so as to keep the tempera-
ture down to fifty degrees or lower? The barrels should be
perfectly tight and thoroughly wet inside before the fruit is
placed in them, and when packed, ready for heading, pour
a bucket of water evenly all over the face, so that it will trickle
down and wet all the apples, thus furnishing, during their
confinement, sufficient moisture to prevent shriveling and
preserve their flavor. A small hole in the bottom will allow
surplus water to escape.

Of course, I recommend this method of keeping apples
only for those grown on sod, though the following corrobora-
tion which came today in Zhe Rural New-Yorker of March
31 shows that it is practicable to a certain extent with cul-
tivated apples in the colder sections of the country. I say
‘‘cultivated,” for the fact that some of Mr. Van Orman’s
apples rotted is proof that they were thus grown.

‘‘ Several years ago I met T. B. Van Orman, of Iowa, and, being
of one mind, our conversation drifted to fruit. Among other things
he said: ‘I keep apples right up to May and June, and they keep
improving in flavor all the time, and I have the minimum of trouble
and loss.’ I said: ‘How do you do it, for I want to know and
have it on paper?’ He said: ‘Take your apples as soon as gath-
ered. Get good, tight barrels or boxes; line the bottom and sides
with paper, then, with a vessel of water by your side and a pile of
paper, take the sound apples without worms or bruises, dip each one
in the water and wrap it in a piece of paper, and place in the box or
barrel; and place also a sheet of paper between each layer of fruit.
When the box or barrel is full, head or nail up tight. They can be
kept almost anywhere except in a warm place. I usually place mine
against the north side of the house, and throw some old trash or
carpets over the barrels and let them go. If one rots it will not affect
the rest, and the flavor grows better to the end. I never open a box
or barrel until I take it in for use. Have kept them in this manner
for the last ten years. My first experiment was with leaves, but they
affected the flavor somewhat.’ If this experiment is true, and it will
cost very little to try it, the keeping of apples for the family is
solved, and will be as great a boon as water glass for the preserva-
tion of fresh eggs. I would leave at least one package where it would

132 THE NEW HORTICULTURE.

freeze, not in the open air or uncovered, to learn the effect. Let a
hundred try the experiment, and something good may come from Mr.
Van Orman’s experiments and experience.

~ C. W. KeErFer, Kansas.”

Notice that his fruit, like mine, improved in flavor all the
time, as will be seen from the following testimony of
Professor Connell, of Farm and Ranch, and E. W. Kirk-
patrick, to whom I sent specimens for trial. Writing of
them, the editor says, under date of March 22: ‘‘ Your
apples were firm, sound and good. Several persons tasted
them and declared they were better than any cold-storage
apples on the Dallas market.” E. W. Kirkpatrick, who was
present and also ate of them, wrote meas follows: ‘‘ Your
apple was most delicious, equal to the Northern Spy anda
better keeper. If we can grow and keep our apples like
yours, there will be great profit in it.”

I omitted to say above that my suggestion of opening the
doors of the cold-storage house at night for chilling pur-
poses, applies only to the southern or warmer part of the
country, there being no trouble to keep the temperature
down farther north.

And now just two orange ‘‘ feathers” for Florida and Cali-
fornia. Soon after the war, before Texas had railway connec-
tion with the world, I saw my friend, Henry Rosenberg, the
Galveston philanthropist, pack in the fall several barrels of
beautiful oranges from large trees growing on his well-kept
Bermuda grass lawn, for shipment to relatives in Baltimore,
sending them by way of New York, in the hot hold of one of
the old-time side-wheel steamers. It must have taken two
weeks to make the trip. He told me afterwards that he was
greatly surprised the next spring, on visiting his friends, to
find some of his oranges still on hand and in excellent con-
dition. The other ‘‘feather” is that about the same time I
was in an old Italian’s grove of about fifty orange trees, also
in Galveston, all of which were trimmed up to clean, straight
bodies six or seven feet high, not in sod, for the grass had
been shaded out, but uncultivated. I was admiring the
beautiful trees with their branches bending under the load

MARKETING AND STORING FRUIT. 133

of fruit, when the old man remarked, ‘It’s all very pretty, but
all wrong. Come with me,” and he led the way to the farthest
corner of his grove, and there, with its lower branches lying
on the ground, also covered with the finest fruit, stood an
enormous orange bush, as it appeared to me, with its great
round head thickly studded all over with oranges. ‘‘Now,”’ said
the old man, ‘that’s the way to grow oranges, and were I plant-
ing another grove I would never put a knife to the trees.
That tree was a chance seedling which came up there, and
has never had a twig cut off.” I opened the wall of leaves and
fruit to see how it looked inside. To my surprise, there was
not a leaf in the interior, nothing but the bare limbs and
smaller branches, all the twigs dried up and gone, pruned by
the dense shade.

A few years later, a freeze came along, peeling the bark
from the tall straight bodies and killing every tree in the grove
except the big bush down in the corner. It stood all the at-
tacks of Jack Frost until 1886, when the thermometer fell to
five degrees above zero, freezing Galveston Bay over, when
the big bush was killed, root and branch. Iwill here say that
no tree takes more kindly to root-pruning than the orange.
If the roots are cut back to stubs an inch or less long, and the
body to about a foot after planting, ground well rammed and
tree Jet alone forever after, the big bush will be duplicated,
for such a tree is practically a seed, and will reéstablish it-
self on several deep, strong tap-roots instead of on one, like a
seed.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

The Pecan.

N the former edition of the book, I had very little to say
| about nut-growing, as at that time no interest was taken

in the subject ; but the case is very different now. While
the recent successful fruiting, by Mr. G. A. Schattenberg, of
Boerne, Texas, of the English walnut budded on the wild
Mexican variety, so common in west Texas, opens a wide
field for experiment with that valuable nut, the native pecan
offers opportunity for profitable investment in the South
that cannot be surpassed. Of course, many exaggerated
statements as to immediate profits and entire immunity of
the tree and nuts from insect pests, as well as the certainty
of annual crops, are going the rounds of the papers, and the
intending pecan-grower should inform himself well before
going into the business; but, discounting all these, a pecan
grove of improved varieties will, in time, say ten or fifteen
years, undoubtedly pay good and constantly increasing
profits. Or the quicker method of sawing off large trees
from 6 to 10 feet above the ground, allowing all shoots to
grow the first year and budding three or more of them the
following season, can be adopted with great success. All
those having natural groves will find in the various bulletins
issued from Washington, and also by the State Experiment
stations, the necessary information of how to top-bud such
trees, so I will confine my remarks entirely to establishing
new groves. In so doing the two all-important points are,
first, how to prepare and plant the trees, and second, how
and where to get young trees grown from bearing ones, thus
ensuring earlier fruiting by many years than if trees grown
from young nursery ones are used. There is also good
evidence to prove that the varieties so successful in the
alluvial soils of the Mississippi valley and in the moist ©

(134)

THE PECAN. 135

climate of the South Atlantic states are not adapted to the
drier climate and more elevated lands of Texas.

Were I planting a pecan grove in this state, if I could
not get native budded trees that were every way satisfactory,
I would either set common seedlings, treating them as
shown hereafter, or plant the nuts where they were to stand,
and bud them the third year or later, from the best Texas
bearing trees. Common trees, from one to four years old,
or even older, can be used. A German newcomer, some
years ago, planted near here pecan trees about six inches
in diameter, to the amusement of the old-timers, and every
one grew. He dug them with short side roots and cut the
deep ones about a foot below
the surface and planted them
deep, ramming just like a fence
post after watering well. All
transplanted trees should be
cultivated thoroughly for four
or five years and fertilized, un-
less the soil is rich. The latter
is especially necessary where
young trees or nuts are planted
in peach or other orchards that
are in mowed sod. I will now
give the proper method and
best form of tree to be used.

The accompanying illustra-
tion shows two pecan trees ex-
hibited by me at the recent
convention of the National Nut
Growers’ Association, in Dal-
las, Texas. The tree on the left
was planted with about two
feet of the taproot, in a hole
deep enough to receive it in its natural position. The
hole was then filled with pulverized surface soil and well
rammed. The smaller tree on the right was root-pruned to
four inches and planted in a dibble-hole about eight inches

136 THE NEW HORTICULTURE.

deep and also well rammed. The trees stood about three
feet apart, were set on April 2, 1905, and the tops of both
cut back to about six inches. It will be noted that the tree
with the long root, though larger, made less top than the
other and emitted only small, fibrous surface roots, the lower
two-thirds of the taproot being entirely bare, showing that
the tree failed to appreciate my leaving so much taproot.
The other tree, as will be seen, at once struck several deep
roots from the lower end, the roots being stronger ones than
those from the other tree. Unfortunately, the strongest of
these new taproots was broken in digging the tree.

Now, in view of this plain proof that the pecan prefers
to re-establish itself on a new set of taproots after short
root-pruning, are not our horticultural pecan scientists doing
inexperienced growers, as well as themselves, a great injus-
tice in planting, and advising others to plant, pecan trees in
holes thirty inches deep and thirty inches wide, as was
advised by one of our pecan authorities at the Dallas
convention ?

I take it that every one knows that a pecan tree produced
from a nut will, in the end, make a much more vigorous
growth than a tree transplanted with long roots. Hence, in
cutting back the top and root, as practiced on the smaller
tree, it is plain that I reduced it practically to the condition
of a nut, the distinguishing feature of which is its ability to
strike a deep taproot, with the difference, however, that
the root-pruned tree struck several such roots instead of one,
and is capable of reproducing itself with a certain variety of
nut, which the planted pecan scarcely ever does. Another
fact brought out by the above experiment is, that it is simply
a waste of money to subsoil, or to dig deep holes, for the
penetrating power of a root-pruned pecan tree, like the nut,
is almost incredible, the subsoil under the smaller tree hav-
ing been a compact, hardpan clay about one foot under the
ground. Of course, I do not expect the orthodox pecan
scientists to be convinced by the above facts, for with them
facts cut no figure if the authorities advise to the contrary ;
but I believe that a great many of the plain growers, who

THE PECAN. Si)

are looking for the truth, will be convinced, at least so far

-as to test the matter, which the scientist never does. The
<‘good old way” is always good enough for him even if it
does cost five times as much and gives inferior trees.

The foregoing remarks on the pecan were written several
days before the recent freeze of March 20, and the book was
ready for the printer; but after the fall of the thermometer
to 20 degrees, a thing unknown this late for many years, I
concluded to wait and give its effects as a guide to the
hardiness of the various kinds of fruit. I have spent the last
few days examining fruit trees in yards and orchards around
Lampasas, and noticed some interesting and important
things. First, as to the relative ability of sod and cultivated
trees to retain their fruit after such a freeze, I find that
today, April 1, as far as I know, there is not an Elberta tree
around here that has a single peach on it, where it has been
cultivated. My sod Elberta suffered worse than most other
kinds, but has a good one-fourth of a crop, while the two
rows of old Elberta shown on page 115, have about as much ;
but the tree by which I am standing is so full that it ought
to be thinned, though it will not be, as the owner, a lady,
has confidence in its ability to mature it all to good size.
And I also believe it will, for, appreciating its noble services
in the cause of truth and progress last summer (it being
the tree that bore the Rochester peaches), last winter I
top-dressed the ground around it and the two trees beyond
in both rows, very heavily with muriate of potash and old-
time Peruvian guano, a new deposit of which has been
recently discovered in the Pacific ocean and is now offered
for sale by Edmund Mortimer & Co., 13 William street,
New York. The effect has been most remarkable, for all the
fertilized trees are heavily loaded, while the balance have a
very moderate crop and several trees very few peaches.
Now, here is an effect just the opposite of what I expected,
for I had noticed before the freeze how vigorously the shoots
on those trees were pushing and their enormous bloom, and
the night of the freeze I thought of them and felt sure they
would lose all their fruit, the sap being in such a vigorous

138 THE NEW HORTICULTURE.

flow. But it seems that any such tenderness was far more
than compensated for by the abundant supply of food given
them, just where the greedy little surface roots could best
appropriate it, thus enabling the trees to resist the action of
the freeze and retain their fruit. Could there be a stronger
demonstration of the necessity for letting those roots alone ?
Of course we are not ‘‘out of the woods,” for, while the
little peaches have shed their blooms and look all right,
some bad effect of such a freeze may yet show up, though I
don’t believe it. If, however, these four trees mature their
crops, is not the problem of damage to this grand peach
from late frosts, to which it is more subject than any other
variety, entirely solved ? Certainly, at least with sod treat-
ment, and if so every peach-growing community in Texas
should send a representative to Lampasas in July to see this
object-lesson which will be worth so much to Texas and the
South. I will give the result in Farm and Ranch when all
danger of dropping is over.

But those forty Elbertas are only a part of about 600
other peach and plum trees of many kinds, nearly all of
which are loaded. Another sod orchard on the other side of
the town, of about 400 trees, seems to bein just as good
condition, while all the sod seedlings and transplanted trees
around town, except Elberta, are actually overloaded.
There are but two large, thoroughly cultivated orchards near
Lampasas, with the owner of one of which I talked yester-
day, who told me his whole crop was gone. The owner of
the other told a friend of mine that he ‘‘ would not have a
peach unless some of the stray blossoms now appearing set.”

Now, as to the relative hardiness of varieties under
such a freeze. Of the improved kinds, Arp Beauty, Annie
Williams and Alexander are too full, while Chilow, Stump,
Wheeler, Dewey, Carman, Sneed and Rivers have good
crops; Triumph, Victor, Crosby, Frances, Dulce, Pond’s
Late, Tarbell, Rogers and Mamie Ross, from a few peaches
to none at all. Of native seedlings, standing in various
yards around in Bermuda sod, which I have named and all
of which are loaded, I will mention the Harris, large, snow-

THE PECAN. 139

white cling with faint blush, middle of August; Connell,
the peach Kirkpatrick carried from here on September 14
and ate three weeks later in Portland, Oregon, a very large
yellow cling with red cheek; Lampasas, white freestone
with red cheek, medium size and ripens just with Connell,
both hanging until the middle of October; Adams, the
largest late peach, cling, white flesh and red cheek, middle
of October to middle of November. All of these seedlings
have very small seeds and are of fine quality except Adams,
which is fine for preserving but too late to be of best quality.
Believing that these seedlings, which are now all full and
have never missed a crop, are worthy of propagation, I will
send buds this season free to the following nurserymen, who
will doubtless grow them fer sale: The Texas Nursery
Company, Sherman; F. W. Malley, Garrison; Jno. F.
Sneed, Tyler; J. F. WLeyendecker, Freylsburg; F. T.
Ramsey, Austin; G. A. Schattenburg, Boerne; E. Knox,
San Antonio; Orr Nursery Co., Arp, and Fernando Miller,
Lampasas, all of Texas. I omitted mentioning the ‘‘Cauthen”
peach referred to in a previous chapter, which will also be
sent, but I cannot furnish the general public.

The Japanese plums have little fruit except Shiro, which
has a fair crop. All the Americana and Chickasaw varieties
have enough. Of thirteen varieties of apricots, which usu-
ally bear well, only two have any fruit left, the Berzetti and
Montgamet, both highly esteemed California kinds, which
still have considerable fruit on them, the former being the
last of all to bloom and having the most fruit. Cuttings of
these two apricots will also be sent to the nurserymen named.
I will now close this review with a letter just received from
W. W. Durham, of the Austin Sod Experiment Station,
dated March 30.

‘©H, M. STRINGFELLOW.

Dear Sir.—I met three cultivating orchardists today, one of
whom, Mr. Rutledge, of apple fame, lives nine miles north of Austin,
who told me that he had killed most of his orchard by plowing, and
what was left had been totally killed by the recent freeze. Mr.
Weaver, owner of the 800 peach trees that lost their crop last year
by the February freeze, has now lost it all again. Mr. Rutledge

140 THE NEW HORTICULTURE.

says that all the fruit except apples is gone in his section. I went
through my orchard again today and find that I have lots of peaches

on my trees. Yours truly,
W. W. DuruHam.”’

Mr. Durham is a cotton buyer of Austin, who, with no
experience, had the foresight and sound judgment to see
the great truths of the New Horticulture when laid before
him, and the nerve to go out, drive holes in the virgin sod,
in 3-foot hoed circles, and plant 1,000 close root-pruned
fruit trees six years ago, to the great amusement of his
neighbors. They laughed then, but he laughs now. To him
and the following progressive journals which have from time
to time opened their columns to a free discussion of the
New Horticulture and given it kindly consideration, I feel
under lasting obligations. Except for them, its principles
would have made slow headway. The names of these
unprejudiced journals are the Practical Fruit-Grower of
Missouri, the Rural New-Vorker, Country Gentleman and
American Fruits of New York, the Pacific Fruit World of
California, the Peach and Truck Grower of Georgia, the
Southern Fruit Grower of Tennessee and the Florida Agri-
culturist of Florida, as well as the general press of Texas.
The one exception to this fair treatment of so important a
subject has been the Mational Nurseryman of Rochester,
N. Y., whose editor, Professor Craig, has taken every
opportunity to ridicule and condemn the book and its prin-
ciples, and several months ago published an attack on my
truth and fair dealing by a sneaking correspondent of Texas,
who wrote him that my trees were cultivated and not a sod
orchard at all. This was because a space of about one foot
from the trees is kept clean to prevent damage to the bodies
by the mowing machine. To this attack friend Kirkpatrick,
who has visited me several times, kindly replied, giving the
facts as stated.

CHAPTER 2X VIil.

Conclusion.

ND now, in closing this little volume on vegetables and
a trees, their management and diseases, I wish to say
that I am well aware that it invites and will receive
contempt from some, and perhaps sharp criticism from
others. When, years ago, I first announced the facts in
regard to close root-pruning, quite a number of horticultur-
ists assailed me promptly, both in Texas and other states,
and by argument proved conclusively to their own satisfac-
tion that the thing could not be true—and many, doubtless,
think so yet. But the root-pruned tree has come at last, and
to stay. Still, so slow, indeed, are men to lay aside old
prejudices and adopt new methods, that years may pass
before the hoary old fallacies of big holes, deep prepara-
tion, fall and winter plowing and pruning, as well as expen-
sive summer cultivation, are laid away to rest in the museum
of antiquated and mistaken ideas, alongside the notion that
the sun went around the world. They have caused not only
a waste of much money but a world of useless labor, as well
as bitter disappointment and blighted hopes, and to-day, on
hill and in dale, scattered everywhere, stunted, sickly and
dying fruit trees bear evidence of their deadly work. How-
ever, though reform has always been slow, and though the Pil-
grim Progress has ever had to travel rough and thorny paths,
wade through the mire of captious criticism, climb with
toiling step and slow the steep and rugged sides of great
Mountain Doubt, and ever and anon strike down with the club
of Fact the lusty giants Conservatism and Authority that block
his way—yet in the end he always gets there just the same,
and waves his banner from the mountain top. And so, some
time in the coming future, the mowing machine will replace
the cultivator and the plow. Our close root-pruned trees
(141)

142 THE NEW HORTICULTURE.

will stand on well-kept lawns, or in pastured lots, where,
yearly fed with proper food and sprayed, their sturdy limbs,
clothed with dark foliage of healthy green, will bend beneath
their loads of perfect fruit, while yellows, blight, root-tumor
and black-knot will be but ugly recollections of the past.
That with rational, natural treatment all this is possible, will
be seen from the two following quotations from the January
issue of Green's Fruit-Grower, published in the heart of the
great fruit belt of Western. New, York... Mr. »L.°Bs Pieree,
writing of the ‘‘Summer Rambo” apple, says:

We have a tree standing over the south kitchen door that is about
twenty years old, from a root-graft, and spreads forty feet, and is
thirty feet high. Last year it was the only one on the place that
bore apples smooth and large enough to use. This tree bore about
three bushels, and furnished pie timber for about two months. The
entire apple crop on four hundred other trees [presumably long-
rooted, etc.—H. M. s.] was less than a bushel. This year this tree
is bending beneath its load of fruit, and about the middle of August
I was obliged to pick a part to relieve the burden. The apples were
at that date as large as Baldwins and partially colored, and sold
readily at twenty cents a peck. The tree should be planted in a
sheltered place and the ground strewed with straw, as the apples
ripen gradually, and, being large and heavy, drop and bruise.

The editor, Mr. Chas. E. Green, in another place, writes:

I know of a Baldwin apple tree located at the rear of the kitchen,
near the house drain, where its roots received weekly ablutions from
the wash tubs. I do not dare to state the annual yield of this tree,
for it was beyond belief [probably another root-graft or seedling—
H. M.S.]. I have two apple trees in Rochester near an old hen-house,
on the rich soil of which the roots feed; also two located near my
stable. These trees seldom fail to bear crops of fine fruit, though
the soil is not cultivated.

Presumably all the latter trees were seedlings, as people
do not set two apple trees in a place as were those near the
hen-house—or usually plant two neara stable. I leave these
nuts for my long root, big hole, deep plowing, summer culti-
vating readers to crack.

Duplicates of such root-graft or seedling trees are stand-
ing all over the country. Will not some advocate of the
above-named methods explain fully, and give us the whys
and wherefores of the strange fact that everywhere, the world
over, fruit trees show such partiality for houses?

CONCLUSION. 143

I have introduced the accompanying cut-(page 144) of a
one-year apple tree, grown from a root-graft last season, and
although the engraving from the photograph shows only a
small portion of the roots, it will be seen that they are all
strong and perpendicular, and probably penetrated in one
season deeper than the top is high. But are there any other
causes for the phenomenal success of this representative
apple tree, standing on hard, uncultivated ground? I will
here quote an extract from a critic of mine in Zexas Farm and
Ranch, who undertook to answer this question, and suggests
that, first, ‘«the soil near a dwelling is likely to be rich, deep
and full of vegetable matter ;” and secondly, that ‘the noise,
smoke and smell of a human habitation tend to drive harmful
insects from nearby fruit trees.” Possibly some one may add
that the slops and wash-water from the kitchen played an im-
portant part. As to the first statement, is it a fact that such
was likely true? I see no reason why, but if so, what part
would so small and circumscribed an area play in developing
the last full crop on a tree with a forty-feet diameter of head
and lateral feeding roots, certainly covering, at a small esti-
mate, one hundred feet in diameter? I have traced oak roots,
in a field near a wood, that far in a single direction, and
found them still travelling. His second statement is abso-
lutely unfounded in fact, for we all know that screens are
everywhere a necessity to keep out the swarms of beetles,
candle-bugs and moths of every kind that, drawn by the lights,
flock to our houses after dark. The live oaks here in Galves-
ton are much worse eaten by the canker worms near the
electric lights than farther away. Thirdly, as to the wash-
water and kitchen slops, in this day of cleanliness and sewer
drains, it is hardly likely that Mr. Pierce allows such things
to be thrown around his house, and if he did, as the tree stood
at the back door, its feeding roots were far removed, and
would receive small benefit from such applications near the
trunk,

But let us examine a little farther into the facts concern-
ing this apple tree. It is not only of remarkable size for its
age and neglect, but seems ordinarily to bear enormous crops,

THE NEW HORTICULTURE.

144

E ONE YEAR OLD, FROM
ROOT-GRAFT.

E TR

APPL

TURAL SIZE,

ROOT-GRAFT—NA

CONCLUSION. 145

and the fruit, though immature and only partially colored,
was, without thinning, as ‘‘large as Baldwins,” and Mr. Pierce
suggests a sheltered place to protect its wonderful crops, and
also a mulch of straw to save the ‘‘large and heavy apples”
from bruising when they fall. Remembering that results
come only from adequate causes, and not by chance, is there
any adequate cause for the regular and abundant crops on
this tree, except that it had struck its several tap-roots, as
shown in the cut (page 144), deep down to permanent moist-
ure, and that its surface roots were left entirely undisturbed?

I will now bring this chapter and the book to a close, sub-
mitting it to the serious consideration of fruit-growers all over
the world, for its principles are of universal application.

There is not a single really important operation of our
modern orchards, ‘starting with the form of tree, character of
ground preparation, planting of the tree, and its after-treat-
ment, all through its poor, persecuted life, that is not a plain
violation of nature’s methods, by which she grows trees so
far superior to ours that any but a blind man must stand
abashed at the comparison. Being so revolutionary, The
New Horticulture has met with determined opposition and
ridicule from a large majority of the Professors, Horticultural
Scientists and Experiment Stations, who seem to be bound
with the strong chains of prejudice, Prometheus like, upon
the rock of blind conservatism. They will not experiment
fairly, and yet condemn. While there are other honorable
exceptions to this charge, I will close with two quotations,
the first from Prof. T. L. Brunk’s bulletin, issued from the
Maryland Experiment Station sixteen years ago, in which,
with prophetic vision, he says:

‘IT believe I am safe in stating that these methods of treating
trees are destined to supplant old methods to a large extent, and with
a larger range of species and varieties than has yet been tried, and
that they have a number of important advantages over old methods

which will give a new stimulus to fruit-growing and result in a new
system of training and after-treatment of orchards.”

That he was a true prophet is proved by the fact that
thousands of progressive men everywhere have planted, and
still are planting, root-pruned orchards, and putting them

146 THE NEW HORTICULTURE.

down to mowed sod when in bearing. The other quotation
is from a bulletin issued by Prof. H. N. Starnes, of the Geor-
gia Experiment Station seven years ago, which concludes as
follows :

‘Whether or not Stringfellow’s methods ultimately become uni-
versally adopted, they can not, in view of the various successful tests
in which they have figured, be any longer criticised as visionary or
ridiculous, and so dismissed. The Stringfellow theories have now gone
beyond this point, and must be treated with the respect which their
grave importance to the fruit-growers demands.”’

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