The Florida agriculturist. [volume] (DeLand, Fla.) 1878-1911, 1907-06-26

cultivated from early spring"
On April rs last Mr.. Durham again
wrote me as follows:
"There are no peaches in my or
chard except few Crosby, but I am
really proud that my trees came out
Of the recent terrible drouth whole.
Mr.. Broadie, big peach man south
west of Austin, who cultivates, says
that most of his trees are dead"
Abiding to the same subject, Mr..
F. T. Ramsey, the Autsin nursery
man, wrote me on May I:
trees this year are those standing near
fences or in some location where they
were surrounded with weeds" So
much for the largest crowbar planted
sod orchard in Texas.
But returning to 1000. Knowing
we'll that though Mr. Durham's and
my orchards should prove successful
Northern growers would limit the
methods to the South, I sent Mr.. H.
W. Collingwood, editor of the Rural
New Yorker, a copy of the New Hor-
ticu1ture and offered to give him
1000 fruit trees if he would treat and
plant them as I had done, on unbrok
en- ground appealing to him to make
the experiment in the interest Of hor-
ticultural progress. Having just
bought a farm over in New Jersey
and being entirely without practical
experience in fruit growing, conse--
quent1y unprejudiced in favor of old
methods, he also saw the common
sense in the new ones and agreed to
set the trees, but insisted On paying
for them himself, which he did, and
here is how he planted them, as after
ward told in his paper: "The trees
were small June buds, 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 stub Of a side root was
left We punched hole with crow
bar right in brush grown field where
no blowing 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.
They grew slowly at first, but later,
after the tap roots got we'll started,
the small feeding ones came out from
below the crown of the trees and
growth proceeded rapidly [ have
dug I'D quite a number to see what
they were doing and in every case
their first effort scenes to be series
of tap roots which dig straight down
into the ground"
The trees are now we'll grown and
in bearing, and last year Mr.. Colling-
wood had this to say: IT have been
criticised for trying this Stringfellow
method of handling trees, root prun-
ing, mu1ching and moving instead Of
cultivating, and many prominent men
warned me in the beginning against
them, but if I were now to publish
their letters it would make those gen
t1emen very weary. In view Of the
way my own trees have acted, [ am
unable to understand just why the
scientific men make such fun Of these
methods. The fact is, those gentle
men will soon not only find it neces-
sary to take a back seat, especially on
the subject of cultivation, but will &C
tually have to stand up"
And here, Mr.. Editor, I hope you
will allow me to say all honor to H.
w. Durham, the two men who, lay
ing aside all prejudice in favor of &C
cepted methods and in direct opposi-
ton to the teachings of all the author
tiles from the very dawn Of horticul
ture of the present day, as we'll as at
a risk of loss of 1000 trees each, and
years of time and labor, were willing
to face the ridicu1e of the horticultural
"scribes and Pharisees" to make
these all important experiments on