Part 38 (1/2)

AN EXERCISE LED BY A. J. PHILIPS, WEST SALEM, WIS., AT 1915 ANNUAL MEETING OF THE SOCIETY.

Mr. Philips: When I first talked top-working in Minnesota, Professor Green and some of the knowing ones felt a little leary about it, but I kept right on just the same. The most I have got out of top-working is the pleasure I have had, doing the work and seeing the fruit grow. I inherited a love for top-working from my father. He used to top-work some, and after I began planting trees my old friend Wilc.o.x used to come and visit me, and he was strong on top-working on hardy roots. I used to make a little sport of the old man, but no more I guess than people have made of me for doing the same thing. He made me a proposition about forty years ago. He says, ”You plant ten trees of a good variety to top-work on--I will pick them out for you--and then you top-work them with Wealthy, and then plant ten Wealthy trees right beside them on the same land and in the same rows, right together, and see which will do the best.” At the end of ten years the Wealthy on their own roots had borne good crops but they began to fail, while the top-worked ones (on Virginia crab) were just at their best bearing at that time. Professor Green came and looked them over at the end of fifteen years. The first ten on their own roots were dead, and the others grafted on Virginia bore apples until they were twenty-five years old. That convinced me that top-working in certain cases would pay if done on a hardy stock.

I have seen a Northwestern Greening tree that was crotched, split apart and lay down when it was loaded with apples, in Waupacca County, but when grafted onto a stock whose limbs grew out horizontal it will carry a load of fruit until it ripens without injury.

I won a first prize at the Omaha exposition. My apples were not much better, but they were top-worked and were a little larger. I have some specimens here that show the practical difference. These grew on my own land. I found in showing apples in Milwaukee at their fairs that I could always get the best specimens from the top-worked trees. That convinced me that you could grow better fruit that way.

Mr. Brackett: What age do you commence the grafting?

Mr. Philips: I like to commence at two years old. I like to set a Virginia crab and let it grow one year and then commence top-working, and top-work about half the first year and the balance the second.

Mr. Brackett: Is that in the nursery row?

Mr. Philips: No, where I am going to have it grow. I have found the Virginia--and the Hibernal, too, either of them, very vigorous trees.

The Virginia is very vigorous. You dig up a Virginia tree, and you find a great ma.s.s of roots; it has strength, and it grows fast. I have top-worked about forty varieties on the Virginia and some on Hibernal.

Mr. Cady was there and looked it over, Prof. Green was there and Mr.

Kellogg has been there a number of times--and I always ask them this question: If they found any trees where the top had outgrown the stock?

I have never seen an instance where the top of the tree put onto a Virginia crab outgrew the Virginia. I have some in my garden now where the union is so perfect it takes a man with good eyesight to see where it is.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A.J. Philips, West Salem, Wis. Photo taken in his eighty-second year.]

Mr. Brackett: If you had Virginia trees twelve years old would you top-work them?

Mr. Philips: Yes, sir, out towards the end of the limbs.

Mr. Brackett: Suppose the limbs were too big on the stock you are going to top-work, how would you do then?

Mr. Philips: I practice cutting off those larger limbs and letting young shoots grow. Mr. Dartt did a good deal of top-working, and he top-worked large limbs. I told him he was making an old fool of himself, but he wouldn't believe it. He would cut off limbs as large as three inches and put in four scions and at the end of two years they had only grown eight inches each. I have put in one scion in a Virginia limb that was about 3/4-inch in diameter, and had it that season grow eight feet and one inch. That is the best growth I ever had.

The reason that my attention was called to the Virginia as being vigorous was, when I attended the meeting of this society about thirty years ago--I think it was at Rochester--Mr. A. W. Sias, who was an active nurseryman and one of the pioneers of this society, offered a premium of $5.00 for the best growth of a crab apple tree, and then, in order to win the money himself (which he did), he brought in some limbs of a Virginia that were six feet long that grew in one season; and I figured then that a tree that could make that growth in one season was a vigorous tree, which it is. Nothing can outgrow it, and that was one reason why I commenced using it.

Mr. Brackett: I have one trouble in grafting the Wealthy to the Hibernal on account of its making that heavy growth. I lost some of them by blight on that account.

Mr. Philips: Which was blighted, the Hibernal?

Mr. Brackett: No, the Wealthy made such a big growth that it blighted. I cut the top back and put grafts in, and they made a good growth, but they blighted. Did you have any trouble like that?

Mr. Philips: No, sir, I think my soil is different from yours. My soil is of a poor order, a heavy clay, and it don't make the growth.

Mr. Brackett: How many of those large limbs could you cut off in one year and graft?

Mr. Philips: Cut about half of the growth of the tree if not too large, don't cut enough to weaken the tree too much. Next year cut the balance off.

Mr. Crosby: In grafting, suppose you get scions from an Eastern state, what time would you get those scions, say, from Maine; Maine is on a parallel with Minnesota?

Mr. Philips: I prefer cutting scions in the fall before they freeze.

Mr. Crosby: How would you keep those scions?