PROFESSOR SMITH: May I answer his question? I think he asked, which is better the tree from the nursery, the natural tree, or a grafted tree?
THE PRESIDENT: If he did, I didn't understand.
PROFESSOR SMITH: That was the question, and I will say he can't find a Heath Cling, unless it is top worked.
MR. DORR: Some farmers who have tried a great many experiments hold to this theory: If you select the seed properly you can produce fruit as good as the nurseries produce it. The things the schools teach don't coincide with what those practical farmers observe.
PROFESSOR SMITH: When you try to find farmers more practical than these men here, you have got some to find.
THE PRESIDENT: The farmer who says he can do that is mistaken.
MR. DORR: He says the same thing about you. When I buy a grafted tree a storm comes along and breaks it where it was grafted. If I can get a perfect seedling I will have a stronger tree.
MR. MCELDERRY: The very thing he is inquiring about has cost Posey County thousands of dollars. Men tell them they have trees that are better than the nurserymen sell and they bite and find they are mistaken. But they get them and pay from ten to fifteen cents more than they would to the dealer. There is no man on earth that can keep the Heath Cling true in that way, or any other variety on earth.
PROFESSOR CLOSE: I want to say a word. Two or three people have made the statement here that it is absolutely impossible to propagate any peach or other fruit true from seed. We have been doing it for years. I believe the orchard peach will come true to the seed. With apples there are groups that will come true to the group but not the variety.
THE PRESIDENT: I am glad to hear that statement. I have understood that the Indian peach will come true to that group but it will not be the big Indian peach you have planted. It is a fact that some of those groups have a tendency to come true to the group.
PROFESSOR CLOSE: Yes, they come true to the group and so will apples.
MR. DORR: May I ask another question? What has become of some of those beautiful, delicious seedlings in southern Indiana they had when I was a boy?
THE PRESIDENT: The same thing that became of Washington and Lincoln--they died.