VOL. XXX.
INDIANAPOLIS, IND., SEPT. 21, 1895.
NO. 38.
Some New Methods in SiriaU. _Fruit Culture.
[Address by R. M. Kellogg, Ionia, Mich., before
the summer meeting of the Indiana State Horticultural Society at South Bend, Aug. 19.
I have some solicitude about the title of
my paper. It purports to set forth some
ideas not heretofore well known. If my
audience were composed of average fruit
growers, I should have little to fear, bvit
there are too many investigators present,
persons who do things with some definite
object in view and who se.ek the cause
that produces the result, and are therefore
familiar with the theme of which I shall
speak.
It would have been better if I had made
the title read, "Some things on which the
average fruit grower does not place sufficient stress," or what would have been
better, "My ideas concerning certain
things." In either case, I shall bo glad
to be literally riddled and questioned to
death at the close of my reading. We are
here to separate the chaff from the wheat
and carry home a rich reward for our
coming.
First, I wish to say the people demand
a better grade of fruit, more luscious,
firmer in texture, larger in size, delicate
in flavor, more of it and delivered to them
in better shape, and will richly reward
the person who shall furnish it. To accomplish all this does not involve an excessive amount of labor, but in our work
we must use modern tools and methods.
We must learn. w_hah.produces certain
very desired results.
The old law that "we do it because our
forefathers did," has long since become
obsolete. They regarded the plant and
tree as an inanimate thing, unconscious
of its existence or of appreciating congenial surroundings, good fare or generous
care. With them a tree was a tree, a
plant a plant. Xo matter what its history
m i_____ 1 _ t bc, even if it was in the last stages
of a miserable and diseased existence, it
afforded the grafter scions and buds of
equal value with the thrifty and prolific
tree which withstood the blasts of winter
and storms of summer and annually returned its bounteous harvest.. Our ancesters regarded the grafting of a tree and
layering of a plant as creating new things,
while we know, or should know; that it is
merely dividing the old tree or plant
For years we have held great fairs and
so far as the animal kingdom is concerned,
stock ^breeding has had a wonderful impetus. The animal receiving the highest
reward had to show a pedigree of long
standing and the result of careful and
systematic breeding and high personal
worth as a breeder of his kind and ability
to perpetuate his high qualities, but look
at the horticultural department From
whence comes these magnificent specimens exhibited here to-day? Have they
been bred up by careful selection of ideal
plants and trees? In making the awards,
will the means adopted by the breeder of
animals to reach the ideal be considered?
Not at all. Will the nurserymen here
present search out the tree and plant
which bore the prize taker and perpetuate it by propagating from it?
Possibly it might not be desirable to
perpetuate them because it might be the
only perfect specimen produced by the
tree for years; a mere chance specimen,
like a stray nugget of gold found in the
drift of the mountain stream. No use to
begin mining there, for the nugget was
washed down from miles above. Find
the plant and tree so healthy and strong
in fruiting vigor, able to resist
blight and disease that, like the
perfect animal that challenges the
admiration of the world, you will
multiply it for the good of the world.
What is the pedigree of the trees and
plants which produced this collection and
how were they enabled to develope such
flnespecimens. Whoshall tell us? Have
you ever visited a horticultural department of any fair where this was pointed
out? I confess I have never seen anything of the kind that ranged above a
mere shoV, a sort of museum or collection of monstrosities.
I am glad to note that we are beginning
to look at things in a different way. We
must look upon plant life as living animals, conscious of all surroundings and
appreciative of generous care; male and
female brought into existence by the
same immutable law that brings the
mamal into life; that the exhaustive effort of procreation in the male animal
when left to unbridled excess, produces
the same disastrous effect upon the male
plant and brings on the same degree of
impotency. What grower has meditated
and thought for a moment when his orchard was unfolding that magnificent but
excessive bloom in the spring, every
twig and limb loaded with beautiful flowers shedding the golden dust from the
anthers which surround the pistils, that
the whole life of the tree was being sapped
and undermined, and when in the years
following, he found his orchard dwarfed
and its fruit a mass of undeveloped hulks
and culls? In the animal he would have
well understood the cause that made the
offspring of even a thoroughbred a scrub,
but when seeking the cause of decline in
his orchard, he spends his time in depreciating the unfavorable seasons, the
drouths, frosts and storms, forgetting that
under proper restriction the vigor of the
tree and potency of its pollen, and health-
fulnessof its pistiles would be equal to
these emergencies.
People imagine that fiod ordained that
fruit should grow to tickle the palate of
a human being and while we concede
such provision to be one of his wise providence, yet the scientific horticulturist
well understands the production of fruit,
so far as the tree is concerned, is only an
attempt to reproduce itself and that the
pulp or fruit is only a receptacle for the
seeds to grow and develop in. If, then,
the pollen possess only a low degree of
potency, barely having vitality enough to
bring life into existence, no fruit will develop. Cut away the shrunken side of an
apple and find no seeds. Examine a but-
tonny, or deformed strawberry and find
the undeveloped part contains no seeds.
The question as to whether a particular
variety of perfect flowering will affect
the size and color of fruit of the pistilate,
has often been discussed and decided pro
and con, but a long series of experiments
have proven that the variety of itself exerts only the slightest influence, everything depending on the potency or life-
giving power of the pollen, freedom from
exhaustion and full development of the
pistils. But you ask what is the remedy
for this impotency of pollen and pistil
weakness?
I answer, apply the same remedy that
the veterinary would apply in the animal.
Restrict pollen and fruit bearing to the
ability to bring to the highest perfection,
bearing in mind that development always
rests upon proper exercise of the organs
to be strengthened. Thus it was that 12
years ago in examining my berry fields, I
found many blanks or plants not bearing
fruit. Some had a few berries, small and
inferior; others were loaded with large-
fine berries. Tillage had been the same
throughout and so I sought for the cause
of the failure and after these years of
study and experiment, I found what I
conceived to be the difficulty, and believe
I have discovered the proper remedy.
(Jive generous cjre, high and nourishing
food and restrict this act of reproduction
to the ability to give highest development •
You must never permit a plant to approach the danger line of exhaustion, if
you intend to propagate from it. You
now ask what particular methods I
adapted to effect the restoration.
I first prepared a special propagating
bed and early in the spring I searched
out the finest plants I could find in the
fruiting   field.    I   found   as   many as I
could of each variety. The requirements
were that its foliage should be healthy
and vigorous and show an abundance of
the largest crowns and fruit buds. Stakes
were placed by it and numbered when
buds were developing and before they
opened so as to mature their pollen; all
buds were cut off, save one or two to save
excessive pollenization. In all perfect flowering varieties, the size of
anthers and stamens were carefully
noted as well as amount and brilliancy of dust they should emit.
When the berry had developed sufficient
to show the character of seeds, all berries
were removed save two, and the one producing the largest and best developed
fruit was selected and its runners potted
and removed to the special propagating
bed. You now ask why the berries were
not all removed at once and I answer that any power possessed by plant
or animal must be exercised and developed; thus it is that nature gave to every
infant tlie desire to romp, laugh, play and
exercise and build up every faculty and
muscle it possesses. These are the means
adopted by the Creator, and must be exercised or they will be taken away and
the means of reproduction is not an exception in the law. A plant which is never permitted to mature fruit would soon
cease to hold the power to do so. Like
fitting the horse for the race track, he
may be driven to develop his muscle -and
power but not to exhaustion.
Hut how about the pistilate varieties'.'
We allow these to bloom to their full rapacity. If they have stamens, the sooner
they are all destroyed, the better. They
are always weak and impotent, and I am
satisfied many valuable varieties of pisti-
lates fail becavise they are fertilized by
these undeveloped organs. The fruit
from pistilate spring-set plants shonld be
removed as soon as set because of waste
of energy, and always before seed formation begins. Pistilates are not as easily
exhausted as perfect flowers, because the
former have a double burden to bear;
nevertheless, the bringing to maturity of
a great number of seeds is a very exhaustive process and if persisted in, year
after year, will surely sap the vitality of
the plant and render it unfruitful. In
our propagating beds, to develop it fully,
we allow it to mature only two or three
berries as in the case of perfect flowering
sorts.
By this practice, we are constantly
breeding from the highest type and discarding every weakness and by so doing
having developed a fruiting vigor and
healthfulness quite beyond any pre-con-
ceived expectation. In the case of raspberries and blackberries, and other small
fruits, we pursue practically the same
course, relieving it from pollen exhaustion by liberal pruning in spring and
strengthening it by high tillage. The
fact that a raspberry or blackberry patch
left to itself, unrestricted, will become
unfruitful in two or three years and that
plants then taken from it rarely or never
yield maximum crops, furnishes good
evidence that a weakness of the parent
follows to its offspring with even more
certainty than in the case of an animal.
I wish to repeat with much emphasis that
all plants propagated by cuttings or lay-
orings are but the separated buds of the
original plant. True it is that there is in
all the millions of trees and plants of
Baldwin apples and Wilson Albany strawberries scattered over the world, they are
in reality the original tree or plant separated into so many* parts, but the difference in their physical condition is very
marked. Some have been placed under
unfavorable environments and fruited to
utter exhaustion, and to propagate from
such stock is but to perpetuate its weakness, while others carefully selected, restricted and carefully cared for, have
steadily improved in all the desirable
qualities. Until within a few years, it
was a universal custom to fruit a straw
berry bed three or four years and then
take Dp new runners from the alley, and
reset. These plants are, in reality, ntw
buds from the old plant, possessing all its
weakness, but strengthened by new roots.
They soon fonnd they could not get
maximum crops and the rage for new and
more productive varieties became the all-
absorbing thought. New sorts came and
shone like a meteor, producing wonderfu!
crops, but under this destructive process,
lost their vigor, ceased to fruit and disappeared only to be succeeded by others
which in turn were to go in the same way.
Finally it was suggested that fruiting
vigor should be maintained if we simply
took all our plants from beds set the previous year and this was a wonderful improvement, but the greatest factor in the
direction of maintaining vigor is entirely
overlooked. Ninety-nine growers out of
100 have not yet put into practice the removing of blossoms from spring set
plants before they secreted excessive pollen and thus build up a potency in this
foundating dust, that should impart a
vigor to the seeds that would force the development of the fruit to the fullest capacity. I wish I could find language to
impress upon you the importance of giving thc greatest heed to this one thing. I
began giving special care to this some 12
years ago, and I know that the stemens
are not only larger, but their pollen more
brilliant and potent and at harvest time
shows a fruit development far superior to
those imt ,-o treated. Thore is an evenness in form, a higher color and firmer
texture, and I add with much confidence,
a richer and more delicate flavor, and believe that when I have said an increase in
productiveness of two-fold, I have not
overstated the results of the system. No
real improvements can be made except
the plant in congenial environments. It
must not only be adapted to the soil and
location, but must be supplied with an
abundance of available food and water.
The past three seasons in Michigan
have been almost disastrous on account
of drouth. The present season is without
a parallel in the history of the State.
Subsoiling of itself is not a new thing,
and yet there are some very important
things connected with it on which growers do not place sufficient stress. In cultivated land, manured year after year, the
heavy winter and spring rains wash much
of the available plant food into the subsoil where it becomes insoluable and remains there in that condition entirely
lost except to a few of the deeper rooting
trees. It can never be made available
until it is brought into contact with the
oxygen of the atmosphere, which we do
in breaking up this sub-strata.
The movement of water in the soil is
governed by two forces: that of gravitation which draws the water down, and
capillary action which returned it to the
surface. Hence, if we subsoil deeply we
not only separate the particles of earth
so they will contain many times as much
water as in its natural dense condition,
thus actually creating a reservoir under
each plant which with proper surface
cultivation will tide us over the most
protracted drouth weare ever called upon
to encounter in this section, but the plant
food thus rendered soluable is returned
to the surface for the use of the plants.
There is still another point in connection with tillage on which growers do
not place sufficient stress and that is firing the surface before plowing. On all
clay or clay loam soils, or in fact anything but the light sands, the surface is
broken up and returned to the bottom of
the fnrrow, leaving a mass of lumps and
air-chambers which no after fitting will
close. The lumps are so dense that the
oxygen of the atmosphere cannot enter it
to render the food available, hence, there
is no inducement for the feeding roots to
enter   it,  thus   making   a   combination
Continued, on Oth page.