Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1869 [PAGE 267]

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253

DISCUSSION.

Mr. H. C. FREEMAN—Do I understand Dr. Hull to say that fruit buds may be changed into leaf buds ? Dr. HULL—Yes. A vigorous growing shoot has the power to push into a leaf, starving out the fruit-germ. Mr. FREEMAN—The practical inference then is, that, in the operation of budding you need not be particular what kind of a bud you take. Dr. WARDER—It is always safer to put in a leaf bud. Mr. FREEMAN—Mr. Pullim, of Centralia, informs me that many of the buds seeming to be leaf buds are really developed into fruit buds. He says it is difficult to tell the difference until they blossom. Mr. MINER—What is the proper time to trim the peach tree ? Dr. HULL—Any time after the fall of the leaf. Mr. MINER—Can you trim safely when the tree is frozen'? Dr. HULL—You can prune any time in the winter. If the limbs are frozen you must take care not to bend them. It is the bending of the limbs when frozen that does the injury. Mr. WRIGHT—I would like some information in regard to growing the peach tree. I find, in this portion of the country, we have no peach trees. They are generally destroyed by this worm at the root of the tree. I don't know what it is called. I have bought trees two years old infested with this white worm. It seems to me useless to try to grow peaches unless we can kill this worst enemy of the tree. I do not believe there is a tree within five miles of this place that is not injured by this grub. Prof. STEWART—I remember a case where a woman scalded the tree at the roots, and she never before had such an abundant crop. Mr. M. L. DUNLAP—I knew a similar case in the city of St. Louis; the party scalding the tree for the purpose of killing it, but the tree received the seeming harsh treatment kindly and bore an abundant crop. Mr. N. J. COLMAN, of St. Louis—I have heard the story of pouring on the hot water, but I heard it as happening in South Carolina. [Laughter.] I know that Edward Bates knew it tried in South Carolina. I have known other parties to locate the story in Virginia. It is immaterial, however, wh^re it is located. You