Mr. Sauter:  In other tomatoes we don’t have that trouble.  It seems to hurt the sale of them to the women folks.

Mr. Hegerle:  Sterilize them a little more.

Mr. Sauter:  About how long would you cook them?

Mr. Hegerle:  I am not the man at the wheel on that part.  I don’t know. 
We have a superintendent that handles that part of it.

Top-Grafting.

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 Wilcox 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?