plant  in  Georgia.    In  reply  to  a  recent  letter  of  inquiry  from  me  he  tells
how  they  turned  out : —

^  H,  M,  Stringfellow —

^  Dear  Sir  :    I  am  glad  to  state  that  the  close-root  pruning  which  was

practiced  when  planting  our  entire  orchard  or
100,000  trees  at  Fort  Valley,  Georgia,  proved  to
be  the  most  successful  operation  we  ever  prac-
ticed, less  than  one-half  of  one  per  cent,  of  the
ti'ees  failing  to  grow,  and  all  making  the  most
vigorous  and  uniform  growth  I  have  ever  seen
in  any  orchard  in  America.  The  orchard  is
now  three  years  old,  and  gave  us  an  enormous
crop  of  superb  fruit  this  past  season.  I  am
thoroughly  in  favor  of  this  system  of  root-
pruning.'  This  method,  which  I  hit  upon  eight
years  ago,  is  simply  copying  nature.    She  starts

ROOT  PRUNED   ROOT  PRUNED    her  trees  from  seeds  with  neither  tops  or  rootst

WHEN  SET.     END  FIRST  YEAR.  ,  ,  .  ,  ,  ,

and  universal  experience  has  shown  that  these
and  trees  grown  from  cuttings  (which  are  practically  seed ),  if  never  moved,
are  the  strongest,  healthiest,  long-lived  and  most  productive.
*' A  root-pruned  tree  is  actually  superior  to  a  seedling,  in  that  it  strikes
several  deep,  penetrating  roots  instead  of  one.  A  tree  planted  with  long
roots  will  invariably  reestablish  itself  by  sending  out  fibrous  ones  from  the
old  roots,  and  result  in  a  permanently  lateral  and  surface-rooted  system.
