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[Clansgian AT wmconnect.com]

I read through this thread quickly and so I hope someone has already covered 
this, but as someone said, you can't just stick an apple branch in the ground 
and have it root.   Even if you got an early water whip that would root, by 
far and away its most likely fate is to die of a soil fungus.

Most apples now of days are grafted onto quince stock.  This makes the tree 
smaller and the quince is impervious to disease of all sorts.

A new apple tree I planed last spring died in the winter but the root stock 
is still alive and has sent up whips.  It's clearly quince, and I will leave 
it 
alone and let it send up lots of whips. Those I will put into sand next 
spring and they (some of them) will root.  The next spring they will be 
available 
as apple base stock and I can graft whatever I like onto them.

I just finished cutting the tops out of a line of pear trees that had gotten 
so tall, I could not spray to the top for fire blight.  It seems the blossoms 
have escaped frost this year so I'm hoping for another good pear crop.   
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