Without further comment upon the very able paper of Prof. Bailey, I desire to supplement his statements upon the 4th and 7th topic, i. e., Lack of Adaptation of Varieties to Conditions or Environments and also Methods of Propagation.

Varieties of cultivated fruits, which are propagated by artificial methods, such as budding and grafting, are to be considered as individuals in this discussion, for, like plants propagated by division, they are all portions of the one original specimen, and like it possess its individual characteristics. We know that no two trees growing naturally from seed present the same characters. They differ widely in constitution. Since then, varieties are to be considered as individuals, we shall speak of class differences in an individual manner.

While I am not an advocate of, or a firm believer in, the theory of correlation of characters, we do find that some of our most desirable and most highly refined fruits present weaknesses in their constitution which either lessens fruit production. or shorten the life of the plant to such an extent that the cultivation of the variety is rendered hazardous or hardly remuner

In central New York apricot culture is greatly limited by the weakness manifest in the trunk of the tree. When top worked on the plum, however, this difficulty is overcome, and the trees return paying crops. Some of the most profitable plums of the Reinclaude type are looked upon with distrust by many growers because of the short life of root-grafted trees. The injury does not occur to the buds or branches, but to the trunk. Its bark splits open, causing an extreme flow of sap and a corresponding secretion of gum. The drying an fermentation which follows weakens the tree and causes premature death. This difficulty is again overcome by a system of double working. Young root-grafted or budded Lombard trees, or those of some other hardy variety are selected and top grafted with the Reinclaude. This places the desirable yet weak trunked variety upon a solid foundation. Some varieties of American plums show this weakness in the trunk, and are, therefore, short-lived and not sought by growers. The Harrison Peach is one of this class. Varieties which are truly desirable

should not, however, be allowed to become extinct because of this fault. Double working or top working should be adopted for them and their good qualities preserved.

From results obtained by A. Carpenter & Sons, of Vermillion, S. D., and by myself while at the South Dakota Station, I am confident of a future for some of the Japanese and European varieties of plums, even in the northwest, when they are worked upon native stocks. The Lombard, Moor's Arctic and German Prune among Europeans, and the Williard among the Japanese sorts, succeeded at the South Dakota Station. The Lombard and German Prune were crown worked; the Moor's Arctic was both crown and top worked, and the Japanese variety was top worked.

While this method of increasing the longevity of some of the above named fruits has been practiced, it, so far as I am aware, has not attracted the attention of the apple grower. But it can be made profitable.

In the apple growing region of New York, as well as in our own State of West Virginia, the King-while one of the most desirable and most highly remunerative varieties-is condemned as short-lived. This will become more and more emphatic as the orchards that are now just coming to their prime begin to show age, and as soon as the old top-grafted trees have all disappeared. Convincing proof of this has recently fallen under my notice. In an orchard owned by Mr. Jas. Carmichael there are now standing King trees which were top worked upon seedlings dug from the fence row. The scions were cut from root-grafted trees set at the same time as, and in the same orchard with, the aforesaid top worked trees. The orchard is now twenty years of age, and the root grafted King apple trees have all been dead for ten years or more, while the top worked trees are to-day in a fairly good condition. In this State root-worked Kings present the same weakness shown by the Reinclaude and other varieties of plums in New York. In an orchard in New York which is now about twenty-six or twenty-eight years of age, the Kings, out of a half dozen varieties, are the only ones that are dying, and

several have succumbed from apparent loosening of the bark, in the last three years. From the example presented by the orchard of Mr. Carmichael, I am convinced that the longevity of the King apple can be greatly enhanced, and that growers need have no hesitancy in planting this variety extensively, if it be double worked, or even top worked.

The King has been made the subject of special comment in this connection because of its high commercial rating in the apple regions of New York. It is not the only variety, however, from which we have such testimony as the above. In the same orchard ten root grafted and ten top worked specimens of the Walldow were set at the same time, the scions for the top grafted trees being cut from the nursery grown trees at time of planting. At the present writing, twenty years after planting, all the top grafted trees are living and in a thrifty condition. The root grafted specimens are all dead except one limb of one tree. These trees began to die at five years from time of setting, and not more than three were alive at ten years from that date. Of seven root worked Kings all are dead, while seven top grafted trees of that variety are all good. The Golden Russet also shows nearly the same record; and for the whole orchard in which one hundred root grafted trees were set, there are sixty-six now living; while of seventy top worked trees on the same soil, with like exposure and treatment, sixty-five This gives us 44 % loss for root propagation against 72% for the top worked trees.

trees are yet doing well.

By double working, a more uniform orchard can be obtaine 1 than by top working alone. For this purpose no better variety can be selected than the Tallman Sweet. It possesses a close, snooth bark, a strong yet not rapid growth and a great length of life.

The question of propagating these tender varieties is not then a controversy as to the superiority of whole root, piece root, or budded trees, and if it were, in all cases, it seems to me, preference should be given to the piece root grafted tree. The piece root tree induces the formation of roots from the scion itself. And, if there is any advantage in plants upon their own

roots, cutting plants and piece root grafted plants should have the preference.

After carefully inspecting a number of root grafted trees, there is little doubt in my mind as to the superiority of root grafted trees for those varieties having strong trunks and for such varieties for double working. Root grafted trees when worked on pieces of roots, can at transplanting time be placed on their own roots by simply pruning away the original roo and leaving only the roots that have grown from the scion itself. In this way, all objectionable features that might arise from the original seedling from which the piece root was taken, will be overcome. For varieties with tender trunks, root grafting as well as budding is not desirable; but for hardy varieties the danger of being worked on a tender root is overcome by piece root grafting more completely than by any other system of artificial propagation.

But it is not our purpose to discuss the merits or demerits of any particular style of propagation. It is rather to set forth what we believe to be a remedy for a great menace to the profitable culture of varieties of fruits, showing weakness in the trunk. By double working, or by top working alone, many now almost discarded varieties may be restored to the list of profitable sorts.

If such practices are capable of preserving the grape industries of Europe, why should we not take equal interest in them for the preservation and extension of our fruit interests?

PART V.

WHY NOT GROW RASPBERRIES ?*

The origin of the raspberry, like many plants whose history antedates that of existing civilized nations, is somewhat mystical.

The European berry takes its name from its supposed place of origin, Mount Ida; the Latin terminology making it ideus ; the generic name Rubus comes from its close relation to the

*Read before the meeting of the State Horticultural Society held at Wellsburg, W. Va., in 1896.

rose. From the botanists point of view this relation is very complete, but from our standpoint we can only see a general resemblance in the habit of the two plants and particularly in their armature, both always on the defensive, each tempting the unwary with a prize, but just as he puts forth his hand to possess it, there comes the warning and the reminder that the sweetest rose has the sharpest thorn.

Just what part these thorns play in the economy of nature is hard to say, but certain it is that through cultivation they can be dispensed with as is the case in our Davison's Thornless Raspberry and some of the blackberries.

The origin of our raspberry is like that of our own people, better known to us than that of other nations. The American raspberries, for there are two of them-the red and the black,— are both familiar to every lad who has passed along one of the highways of the older states. These berries are aboriginese, and, like many other natives, were entirely neglected by the settlers until the new comers proved to their own satisfaction that the raspberry of the garden of their native land could not be successfully grown in the new. They then turned their attention to what nature had providentially placed before them, and from this wild berry of the clearing has come the American Raspberry as we know it to-day.

Propagation. Although closely related botanically, the red and black raspberries are propagated in very different ways. With them nature has but one way common for both and that the almost universal resort of the wise Creator, the seed, besides this, the red berry, left to itself, rapidly takes possession of outlying territory by increasing from root, sprouts or suckers, while its black sister is unable to extend its jurisdiction in this way, but so far as it can extend its arms each season, so far can it extend its territory. Each branch seems to be provided at its extremity with a hand to grasp and hold fast to the new field its length has brought into its possession. The black caps are commercially propagated by what are known as "tips" properly stolens. The "tips" are put down and slightly covered with earth, usually in September, and by spring, each of the