A MEMBER: Yes, sir.
THE PRESIDENT: The Major bore the fourth year, three years old. I believe that is the first record we have of that sort. Has any other borne?
MR. MCCOY: A good many of my young trees bloom in the nursery, but I don't think they succeeded in setting any nuts.
MR. M. P. REED: We have had some two-year trees in nursery, grafted. Most all of them bloomed when two years old—the staminate but not the pestillate blossoms.
THE PRESIDENT: I had a staminate blossom the third season on Butterick in northern Virginia.
MR. HENRY STABLER: Is there any difference between trees budded from young trees in the nursery row which are not in bearing, which have a growth very much resembling water-sprouts, and those budded from bearing trees?
PROF. HUTT: Mr. President, I can't give any experimental data on that line, but the common practice of nurserymen in taking their bud-wood from the nursery stock has been in use for years and years, as with peaches. Very seldom do the nurserymen go to the original trees and get their buds, but it is cut from nursery stock, because it is in a fine condition to work. I think that trees propagated from young, vigorous wood, cut in the nursery, are all right. I am not so sure as to how long it is before they come into bearing.
MR. HENRY STABLER: I don't mean to say it is an undesirable practice to bud from the nursery row, but is there any difference in the time of coming into bearing?
THE PRESIDENT: I spent a very considerable amount of time and money in that belief, but at State College, they made an elaborate test, and they have found no difference between the tree from a water-sprout and one from the bearing tree.
MR. JONES: It is not practicable to propagate very largely from young trees, either fruit trees or nut trees, but there is a good deal in maturity of the wood. The plan we follow is to have mature plots and graft from these old trees. That gives the best wood for nursery propagation.