RANDOM NOTES
Aside from the facts which have been grouped together in this paper, certain notes may be of interest, as introducing questions for speculation.
Are we likely to find more species among the hickories than the ones already described? If so well described a species as the H. Buckleyi has almost escaped observation, and if H. Mexicana is confined, as it seems to be, to a very limited area, and if most of the hickories grow in regions where few botanists are at work, it seems to me probable that several species remain as yet undiscovered. These are likely to be species which lack means of defence, and which are restricted to certain small areas. If we make a parallel with other observations of recent discoveries, one thinks, for instance, in Ichthyology of the Marston's trout, the Sunapee sabling, Ausable greyling, and the Kern River trout, confined almost to a certain stream or lake, and remaining undiscovered for years by naturalists, although familiar to thousands of local fishermen.
Sometimes there is a very apparent reason for the check to distribution of a species. The men whom I employed to go into the mountains of Alvarez for the Mexican hickory tell me that the trees are so loaded down with mistletoe that they rarely bear a crop, and there are few nuts with well developed kernels to be found.
Distribution of a powerful species of hickory, like the pecan, seems to be limited in the North by incomplete development of the pistillate flowers. These are borne on the ends of the herbaceous shoots of the year, and the pecan has such a long growing season that in the North the pistillate buds, which are last developed, are exposed to winter killing. Southern limitation of hickories which have a very short growing period, like the shagbark, may be due to the fact that after a period of summer rest, new growth begins in the autumn rains, and this new growth may not lignify for winter rest.
By artificial selection we can extend the range of all hickories far beyond their indigenous range, which is limited by natural checks. Extension of range, adaptation to various soils, and changes in the character of the nut are likely to occur from grafting hickories upon different stocks of the family. Thus we can graft a shagbark, which does not thrive in poor sandy soil, upon the mocker-nut, which does grow in such soils. Some varieties of the species may grow freely far out of their natural range if they are simply transplanted. For instance, the Stuart pecan, which comes from the very shores of the Gulf of Mexico, is one of the hardiest pecans at the latitude of New York. I don't know about its northern fruiting as yet.
If the Satsuma orange grafted upon trifoliate orange stock gives a heavy, well flavored fruit, while the same variety grafted upon sweet orange stock gives a spongy fruit of little value, we may assume that similar changes in character of fruit will follow nut grafting. Perhaps the astringent feature of the pecan nut will be found to disappear when the pecan has been grafted upon certain other hickories. Sometimes undesirable results are obtained from such grafting; for instance, the pecan grafted upon water hickory stock has been found to grow freely for four or five years, and then to die back unaccountably.
Stocks of rapidly growing hickories, like the pecan and the bitternut, may serve to shorten the bearing time of slowly growing species, like the shagbark, when scions of the latter are grafted upon such stocks. At the present time I have shagbark grafted upon stocks of the pecan, shagbark, bitternut, mocker-nut, and pignut, but these are all young, and I cannot at the present time discern much difference in effect of stock upon scion.
In cross pollenization of hickories, I have not as yet discovered the best way to prevent the development of aphides and of other insects under the protection of the paper bags (which cover the pistillate flowers) sometimes to the point of destruction of flowers before nuts are started. It is probable that sprinkling the leaves with Persian insect powder, and leaving a little insect powder in the bag, will settle the question.
I have not as yet learned how to prevent squirrels from getting at hybridized nuts while they are still upon the tree. Squirrels cut through mosquito netting which is tied about nuts to prevent them from falling to the ground, and if wire gauze is used, they cut off the branch, allowing gauze and all to fall to the ground, and then manage to get the nut out of the gauze. The red squirrel particularly is a pest in this regard, and will even cut off the tape which is tied about the branches for marking purposes, for no apparent reason aside from pure mischievousness.
Nuts which are to be planted must be kept away not only from the squirrels, but from rats and mice. One of my farmhouses got the reputation of being haunted because of mysterious noises made by rats in rattling hybrid nuts worth a dollar apiece about between the partitions. The best way that I have found for keeping nuts for sprouting purposes is to have a number of large wire cages made. These are set in the ground, nuts are stratified in sand within these cages, and allowed to remain exposed to the elements during the winter.
It is probable that some of the hickories will be grown in forest form in future because of the increased value of the wood of the species. For growing hickories in forest form, it is probable that they should be set not more than six or eight feet apart at the outset. At ten years of age the first thinning will give a valuable lot of hoop poles. The second thinning will give turning stock. The third thinning will give wood for a large variety of purposes. I know of no tree which promises to return a revenue more quickly when planted in forest form than hickories like the shagbark and the shellbark, mocker-nut and pignut. These trees will not be expected to bear nuts, because in the struggle for food and light their energies will be directed toward making trunks.
Hickories are undoubtedly to be used for decorative purposes in parks and streets by future generations. The stately pecan, the sturdy shagbark, can be made to replace, South and North, the millions of useless poplars, willows, and other bunches of leaves, which please the eye but render no valuable annual or final returns. The chief reason why this has not been done is because people have not thought about it.
President Morris: This paper is not to be considered with the respect that is ordinarily due to a presidential address, but is open for discussion, and I would like to have any of my theories disproven.
Professor Craig: Doctor Morris has covered a very extensive field in his presidential address, and has raised so many interesting questions that I imagine the difficulty with you is to know just where to begin. Personally, and because I am not as thoroughly aware of the field of Doctor Morris' hybridization work as I ought to be, I should like to ask him what combinations of the hickories he has effected thus far. The field of hybridizing nuts is an exceedingly interesting one, and Doctor Morris has been the foremost worker in it. I am sure it would be interesting to you, as it is to myself, to know briefly what ground he has covered in the extensive range of his experiments.
President Morris: In answering that question, I am speaking from memory and may not speak correctly. I have made crosses back and forth between shagbark, bitternut, mocker-nut, pignut, and pecan. In the crosses I made, using pecans, pollen was received from the South and put upon the others. The number of crosses that are fertile I cannot state as yet, because I have not had experience enough in protecting these nuts, and many of the hybrid nuts were lost. Squirrels and mice destroyed the labor of three of my men and myself during one season. I have secured fertile hybrids between the pecan and the bitternut and between the pecan and the shagbark. If I remember correctly, those are the only fertile hybrids I have between hickories at the present time. In regard to crossing hickories and walnuts, I have crossed back and forth several of the walnuts, our black walnut, our butternut, the Siebold walnut, with the pecan, and with the bitternut, and have fertile hybrids. These are open bud hickories, and the open bud hickories seem to cross pollenize freely with the walnuts back and forth, while the scale bud hickories do not accept pollen readily from the walnuts. I would rather perhaps not make a report to this effect for publication at the present time, for two reasons. In the first place, I am speaking from memory; in the second place, rats, mice, squirrels, small boys, visitors, and high winds have made such inroads upon my specimens, and upon my work, that it is not quite time to report. I am merely speaking offhand in a general way, stating that the hickories, open bud and scale bud, both seem to cross rather freely back and forth. Open bud hickories and the walnuts seem to cross rather freely back and forth, while the walnuts and the scale bud hickories apparently do not cross so readily back and forth.
Professor Craig: In growing your hickories from root cuttings, have you had any trouble from excessive sprouting?
President Morris: Anywhere from one to eight sprouts will start from adventitious buds at the circle near the ground, and then I break all these off but one, letting that one grow.
Mr. Wilcox (Pennsylvania): How do you prepare your stocks for budding and grafting, in pots?
President Morris: I have tried practically every method that has ever been described, and the only successful method that I have now has been topworking vigorous sprouts of one year's growth. That is, I would cut off the tops of the trees now. Next spring those tops send out very vigorous sprouts. I bud those early in August or the latter part of July, or else in the following spring, sometimes, we graft them; and in grafting, it is quite important to cut longitudinally at one side of the stock, and go clear to the cambium layer. That gives the flexible slice on one side, and adapts itself to the tying.
Mr. Wilcox: Have you prepared any stocks in pots at all?
President Morris: Yes. I personally have to leave these to others. I tell my men to do it, but it is rather new work for them, and I give them so much to do that things are apt to be neglected; and just a moment of neglect at the wrong time will wipe out a whole year's work. I have not cared very much at the present time for root grafting in pots. I have lost a great proportion of the grafts, and it does not at the present time seem desirable; but I believe if that is done in hot houses with the ground warmed from the bottom, it is very apt to succeed. Give them plenty of time for granulating. They granulate very, very slowly.
Mr. Wilcox: What kind of pots do you use?
President Morris: Some Professor Sargent showed me, long, made for the purpose.
Mr. Collins (Pennsylvania): You spoke of the hairy hickory. What hickory is that?
President Morris: Hicoria villosa, that you find from Carolina southward.
Mr. Littlepage: You spoke of the Stuart as being the most hardy pecan in the latitude of New York. I presume you meant of the southern pecans?
President Morris: It seems to be one of the hardiest anyway. Even Virginia forms don't stand it through the winter as well as the Stuart. Mine are not fruiting as yet.
Mr. Littlepage: What varieties have you there?
President Morris: Appomattox and Mantura are northern ones I have.
Mr. Littlepage: Have you none of the Indiana varieties?
President Morris: Yes, I have the Indiana varieties on northern stocks, but those have only gone through one winter. They went through all right. I would say that the Stuart is quite as hardy as those.
Mr. Littlepage: I have observed the Stuart in Indiana. A friend of mine has a small orchard of several varieties of pecans. I notice some places where the Stuart has lived six or seven years, and then some particularly hard freeze has frozen it back. I have a letter from Mr. Jones in Louisiana, in which he says they had a recent freeze, and every variety of pecan he had there had suffered, except the Stuart. I don't recall whether he mentioned the Moneymaker in a previous letter or not, but he did mention the Russell and some other varieties.
President Morris: We have a number of pecan trees about New York that have been grown on private estates. Pecans have been planted in Connecticut and Massachusetts. You run across seedling trees here and there, and a good many of them are perfectly hardy. They are very apt to be infertile. The staminate flowers are apt to be destroyed because they mature so late, and they may not carry any nuts. Pollination is imperfect as a rule, and nuts may not fill.
Mr. Reed (Washington, D. C.): But trees of Stuart are in bearing?
President Morris: I don't know about bearing. Three years they have stood a temperature of twenty below zero, so that is a pretty good test.
Mr. Reed: You haven't seen any nuts yet?
President Morris: No, I haven't seen any nuts; but they mature their wood, and if they mature their wood, they are likely to mature staminate and pistillate flowers.
Mr. Littlepage: While it is true they may mature staminate and pistillate blossoms, the question arises whether or not the growing season is going to be long enough at the end to mature the nuts. I notice in going through wild groves in Indiana, once in a while you have a tree which never matures any nuts, though it has bountiful crops. The frost gets them.
Professor Craig: There is evidently a lack of summer heat to ripen fruit. Before we get quite away from this subject, I would like to ask Mr. Roper if he has noticed any striking differences in the hardiness of Stuart and other northern forms of the pecan in his particular locality. Does Stuart maintain its reputation for hardiness in his locality? We are interested in that question from the northern standpoint.
Mr. Roper (Virginia): I think it does, but that is discussed in a paper which I shall read some time here in the meeting. Both the Stuart and Moneymaker have done better with us than any other of the southern varieties when they are budded on hardy stocks. The grafted trees do not do well with us.
President Morris: Professor Lake, will you speak on any of these points?
Professor Lake: I am learning much and prefer to continue a learner. I shouldn't know anything about this crossing, except in the case of the Juglans regia and the oaks of California. That is one case that was not mentioned. We have a remarkable hybrid between the native oaks and the Persian walnut. It is remarkable in many ways. It has foliage that is perhaps half way between the oak and the walnut, and the nut on the surface looks like a small walnut, and on the inside it is between a walnut and an acorn. I had an opportunity to sample the flesh, but it is not edible yet. They are interested in the work very much, especially at Chico and the Southern California Station.
President Morris: It is said to be a cross between the live oak and the walnut. It seems absolutely impossible, but I have seen the nuts, and a photograph of the tree.
Mr. Reed: We haven't devoted a great deal of attention to the hybridization of nuts in our Department work. There is one thing that occurred to me, as I sat here, merely of passing interest. A gentleman in Mississippi sent a specimen of foliage, together with berries, from what he said was a hybrid between the pecan and the China berry; and he had the evidence, because the parent pecan tree stood right there, and the China berry was the other parent tree! He wanted world wide attention called to that. They were taken to the botanist, and he recognized them as one of the ordinary soap berries. There was a similar case this fall. A gentleman in Texas exhibited some nuts at the State Fair at Dallas that he said were a hybrid between the mocker-nut, the common hickory there in Texas, and the pecan. He said that the parent trees stood near one another and that the pecan blossomed some years about the same time that the hickory did, and in those years the hickory nut was long, and in other years it was short. Somebody sent one of the nuts to Mr. Taylor, Assistant Chief of the Bureau of Plant Industry. He sent the nut on to me, and I looked it up. I struck Texas on one of those cold wave days, and drove five miles out and back in a Texas livery rig, and found an ordinary hickory that bore nuts just a little different from others. That is one way the Department is called upon to ferret these things out.
Mr. Littlepage: I would like to ask Mr. Reed what information he has as to the success of pecans bearing when grafted or budded on other varieties of hickory? I say that because I know from traveling around through the country that there is a widespread impression that it is possible to have very extensive pecan orchards throughout the North by topworking the wild hickory. I have had some little experience along that line, but I don't know what the facts are; and Mr. Reed has made an extensive trip recently for the Department of Agriculture, collecting data in reference to the pecan.
Mr. Reed: The present situation, so far as we have been able to gather the information, is just this. The pecan has been grafted on a good many species of hickory, all the way from Virginia south to Florida, and west to Texas; but rarely ever can we find an instance in which they have produced satisfactorily after they have come to a bearing stage. We find that they unite readily ordinarily, and grow rapidly; but the pecan eventually proves to be a more rapid grower than the hickory, and when it catches up and is the same diameter, then the pecan growth is slower, and while they bear a little the first few years, later on they are not productive. I don't wish to say that is final, but it has been the experience so far. You will find most enthusiastic advocates of pecan on hickory where it hasn't been tried for any length of time. The men who try it find it unites readily and makes this quick growth, and think the question is solved. But aside from a few instances in Texas, I don't find very encouraging reports. It may be due largely to the fact that the right varieties of pecan haven't been used. We know that in the early history of pecan culture the Rome and Centennial and some others that are light bearers were used; and then the pecan on hickory has been looked at as so much saved, and they haven't been given much attention. It is still very much a matter of doubt, but is not in a very favorable light at present.
Professor Craig: I would like to ask Mr. Reed if he has looked over Mr. Ramsey's work recently at Austin, Texas.
Mr. Reed: I was at Mr. Ramsey's last year, and I don't recall that that matter came up at all.
Professor Craig: Didn't you see his plantation of top worked hickories?
Mr. Reed: I didn't know he had topworked hickories. He has topworked pecans. Professor Kyle of the Station in Texas has recently issued a bulletin on that very thing, and he cites a number of cases in which he concludes that there will be a favorable outcome; but for some reason, in the instances which he cites, the trees haven't borne very much. They attribute it this season in one instance to the fact that they had a storm at pollinating time, and last year some other accident happened that prevented them from maturing after a quantity of nuts had set.
Mr. Littlepage: I mention this at this time because I want to get Mr. Reed's testimony in the record, because I think that every prospective nut grower must go through this stage. A year ago I undertook on my farm in Indiana to bud the pecan into other varieties of hickory—I have a great many wild hickories growing all over my farm,—shagbark, shellbark, and different varieties of those even. So I went to work and budded perhaps one hundred of those trees, and for a while it seemed that there was going to be a great degree of success. I budded them all upon the limbs where the bark was thinner, and tied the bud in with waxed cloth very tightly; and by absorption the majority of the buds lived a week or ten days. After that, there was perhaps a third of them alive. For the next two weeks, we could find an occasional bud that remained green, and then the number became so very small that I gave up the idea that any would live. But this spring I found a few of these had started to grow, but I had tied them so very tightly that in some instances where there had been a growth of an inch or two, the bud part had been cut in two. Then I undertook it on a much smaller scale. I cut back eight or ten small hickory trees three to four inches in diameter, let them throw up water sprouts, and budded into these. The bud wood I used stuck very tight, and I examined the buds in November, and there were quite a number alive of the Greenriver and Huntington varieties of pecan. Whether they will grow finally remains to be seen.
(A discussion then occurred as to holding the afternoon session and it was decided to continue the business during the afternoon, instead of visiting the Campus.)
President Morris: I would like to comment on one point made by Mr. Littlepage. He has given us perhaps the reason why pecans die back when grafted upon other stocks. Mr. Reed, that is an extremely important point. He has shown that the pecan grows so much more rapidly than other hickories that when it has arrived at a proportion to be supported by the root of the other hickory, it then ceases bearing because all the energy is required for maintaining this new pecan top that tries to grow faster than the hickory, if that is my understanding of this point.
May we not graft freely back and forth hickories of kinds which have about the same rate of growth, and may we not graft other kinds of hickories upon pecan stock, for we don't care how much nourishment is given to a fine young shagbark?
Mr. Littlepage: That is a fine point.
President Morris: I am very glad Mr. Reed brought up that point. It is going to save thousands of dollars if it is a fact recognized in time, because many would go to putting pecans upon other hickories. We may learn that certain kinds of hickories can be grafted to advantage upon other stock, however.
Mr. Reed: There is another point right there I would like to have your views on, and that is, the smaller the hickory is at the time the pecan is grafted on it, the greater will be the influence of the pecan on the hickory.
President Morris: It can drag the stock along perhaps. It has been proved, I think, that a graft has a certain influence upon the stock, and in some cases can drag it along willy nilly to a certain extent. The root and the top get to balance each other fairly well if the root is very small at the time the graft is put on. Most of the trees that have been topworked to pecan have been various kinds of large hickories. Perhaps if you were to take a shagbark hickory one to two years of age and graft it, the pecan top would dominate or control that root, no matter whether it wanted to grow or not.
Mr. Reed: The claim is sometimes made that if the pecan is grafted on other hickory young enough, it will transform the hickory completely. It will make a sufficient root system to feed the pecan as well as the pecan root would. But I have never seen that demonstrated.
President Morris: That is speculative. It is a very valuable point, one of the sort of points that would naturally be brought out at a meeting of this kind.
Mr. Reed: Have you seen that with other fruits, Professor Craig?
Professor Craig: Yes. Each variety of apple produces its own kind of roots without reference to the seedling stock. That is to say the scion overrules the root in budding or grafting upon one or two year old seedlings.
President Morris: A parallel that comes to mind now is the grafting of Burbank's Royal walnut upon ordinary walnut stock. When that was done, his Royal walnut was said to drag the other walnut along.
Professor Craig: I think it is a very valuable suggestion. I am not sure I will go as far as the President has gone; but I think it is exceedingly suggestive, and worthy of careful consideration.
Mr. Rush (Pennsylvania): I find the same experience in some instances, that the graft outgrows the stocks. That is a peculiar instance of the work of improper unions. Eventually the stock pushes up and forms a perfect union in growth, with the Persian walnut. This is particularly applicable to pecan and hickory. I suppose Mr. Reed will bear me out in that, with regard to English walnut and black walnut.
Mr. Reed: Oh, yes.
President Morris: You occasionally see a variety of apple grafted on another in which the graft part gives the tree a sort of slipshod appearance. How about the bearing in that kind of a tree?
Professor Craig: They usually bear heavily where the food supply is restricted.
Mr. Reed: That would make our pecans bear more heavily on hickory stock than on their own.
Professor Craig: As a matter of theory, they ought to. The bearing ought to be increased, because it is a system of girdling, or brings about the same effect,—in other words it restricts the return flow of the elaborated food. The food is checked at the point of union. Another parallel is in the case of Prunus domestica, the European plum, when worked on Prunus Americana, the American plum. In that case, the top always outgrows the stock, and in ten years it presents a very curious appearance. It presents the appearance of a very top-heavy head on a very spindling stem. The bearing is usually encouraged, but the fruit is usually small. The amount of fruit measured by numbers is increased, but the amount of fruit measured by the size of individual specimens is decreased.
Mr. Collins: Isn't the size of the fruit increased in the case of apples?
Professor Craig: By topworking, usually, it is, but that doesn't contemplate such an extreme case as that. It means when the union is reasonably uniform, when there is a reasonable affinity between stock and scion. But in extreme cases we get the opposite result. Reproduction is encouraged, but size of fruit is checked.
President Morris: I would like to hear from Mr. Rush or Mr. Pomeroy in connection with the hickory.
Mr. Pomeroy: I haven't ever tried any experiments with the hickory.
President Morris: We will discuss further some of the points that have been suggested in this paper, because it seems to me we are along a good line of cleavage, and this line of cleavage may dispose of some questions that we haven't discussed. One question brought up was if the bitter, astringent qualities are likely to be recessive among hybrids in the trees which have bitter nuts.
Mr. Littlepage: I made a trip through Missouri and Arkansas a year ago, and while there, took occasion to go into the forests, and investigate to some extent the Arkansas and Missouri hickory and pecan. Among other things, I found two hybrids, one of the pecan and one of the pignut, one of which was bitter and inedible, the other a fairly good nut. I have both of them with me here today. One of them was very astringent and bitter, the other had taken more the quality of the pecan as to meat, and was a fairly good substitute. I don't know what the reason for it is, that one is fit to eat, and the other isn't, when they are both hybrids between the pignut and the pecan.
Doctor Deming: How did you know they were hybrids, by the appearance?
Mr. Littlepage: Yes, the appearance is unmistakable. The pignut characteristics are very prominent, also the pecan characteristics.
President Morris: Have the members anything to say about the Stringfellow method of transplanting hickories?
Doctor Deming: I have had very little experience in transplanting hickories, but I set out two Hales hickories I got from Meehan, and they are both living, although they have made little growth in some three years. Can you tell us what stocks the Hales hickory is grafted upon?
Mr. Brown (Pennsylvania): Upon the bitternut. All there are have been upon the bitternut from the start.
Doctor Deming: Mr. Littlepage, what do you think of the future of topworking our seedling hickories in the North with improved varieties of hickory or pecan,—the commercial future?
Mr. Littlepage: It is largely speculative. I suppose it is the province of every nut enthusiast to have an opinion about these things. In fact, I find it is encouraging to talk to the fellow who has an opinion. My notion is that there is a great future for topworking the various varieties of the hickory in the North to the desirable forms of the hickory, that is, of the hickory other than the Hicoria pecan. On my farm I expect next year to devote some time to topworking the various hickories I have to the desirable varieties of the shagbark. I think that can be done throughout the whole country. The shagbark seems to be indigenous to such extensive latitudes, that it seems to me there are great possibilities along that line. I observe that around here we find many of those trees. I have some very beautiful shagbarks that came from Canada. My opinion is that it will be successful. I think the reason the pecan has not proved very satisfactory upon the other species of hickory is that most of those hickories have a close grained wood, and that the distribution of available food depends largely upon the amount of sap. The Hicoria pecan is a much coarser grained wood. The flow of the sap upward is facilitated much more than the flow of the sap upward through the hickory stock of other varieties. I believe that is the reason the theoretical rule would probably not work in this case, simply because the distribution of sap cannot take place fast enough through the tight, close grained stock of other varieties of hickory. Otherwise, I don't see why the rule would not obtain, as with fruits. The experiences Mr. Reed gives, I think, are generally recognized by those who have experimented with them to any extent. I noticed in visiting Mr. Roper's nursery he had one very beautiful specimen of the pecan grafted on a hickory. That was the Stuart, was it not?
Mr. Roper: The Moneymaker. It had made a growth of four or five feet in two years.
Mr. Littlepage: Do you know the variety of hickory that it was topworked to?
Mr. Roper: Just our common hickory, I suppose the pignut.
Mr. Littlepage: It made beautiful growth from the wood standpoint.
Mr. Roper: Mr. Reed's point was that it would do that till it got by the period of good nutrition from the root. Professor Craig says the elaboration of food from the pecan top more than overcomes the deficiency.
Professor Lake: I would like to question Mr. Littlepage's physiological ground for the lack of proper fusion of liquids between the pecan and the other hickories. I believe it is not authenticated that the water supplies from the earth would not distil as fast in the close grained hickories as in the more open grained pecan. At least, the very close grained, firm woods of the tropics transmit a tremendous amount of water, much in excess of many of our fine grained woods of the North. And it seems to me I wouldn't like to have this Association go on record as vouching for this explanation exactly. It seems to me there are better explanations. Lack of fusion is not due to the amount of water that is carried up, but rather to the fact that the root system of the hickory does not develop fast enough to collect water to transmit.
Mr. Littlepage: I am very glad to hear Professor Lake's statements. My suggestions were given only as a possible theory that occurred to me, and I don't vouch for their accuracy. There must be some explanation to controvert the general rule which Professor Craig has given us.
Professor Craig: May I add one word? When a stock and scion unite, the union is really a mechanical one. It is a union of cells, and in that respect it is simply mechanical, not a physiological union. The different life types or character of the scion and top do not fuse, but we have a mechanical union of cells, and that mechanical union is as clearly shown forth as possible when we make a section through the point of union. If your type of cell in the stock differs very materially from the type of structure in the scion, the union is unsatisfactory. If the types of tissue are much alike, the union is good and you do not have either overgrowth of stock or undergrowth of scion very much, but you have what is called a good union. It is to some extent a question of mechanics, in my judgment, influenced by the cell structure of stock and scion. If you have a good, smooth union, the two grow equally. Where you have overgrowth of scion, you usually have a starved root, because the food which is to be returned elaborated is checked at the point of union, the root is starved, and you have a short lived tree, because your root system, which ought to receive its share of the distributed food, is underfed, finally weakens, and the whole structure fails.
Professor Lake: You may have mechanical union, but you can't have the after fusion in which you are going to have proper function of stock and scion.
Professor Craig: Each cell functions after its own kind. It is a question of passage or transmission of food through that carrier, after the union is effected. If the character of the two types differs very much, the transmission of food is checked and is difficult.
President Morris: There is another mechanical point I'd like to ask about. When the two types of cells differ, will the difference in degree of capillarity regulate the amount of pabulum distributed, or does it depend upon negative and positive pressure?
Professor Craig: That is a very difficult question, because it isn't settled at the present time what credit we should give to capillarity and what to root pressure in sap circulation.
Mr. Reed: There is another question I would like to ask Professor Craig. Supposing you have a mechanical union perfected, what is the difference in the food that different species of the same genus transmit? Has that been worked out?
Professor Craig: I don't think so. Of course, there is a difference in the food. That is proven, because there is a difference in the quality of the food. The tree machine, the tree factory speaking individually, evidently makes different products, and that is shown by the different quality of nuts. That is all we know about it.
Professor Lake: That part below the scion still continues to be normal hickory, and that part above, pecan, so really it is not a matter of distribution of water supply by gravity or other pressure, but rather a distribution of the proper amount of elaborated food; and that is transmitted through the cell itself, not the cell walls. Because this top makes a food that is different from the normal requirements, or because the latent character of those cells below does not respond to the food supply as actively as the part above, is the whole question, it seems to me. If the cells below functioned as the cells above, there would be no question about the stock and scion being the same.
Mr. Littlepage: Of course there must be sufficient flow of sap to distribute food. The hickory root might not send the flow of sap as fast as the pecan top would like.
Mr. Reed: Is Mr. Lake's point always true, that the stock below the point of union remains a normal hickory?
Professor Craig: I don't believe there are more than one or two exceptions noted to that, and those exceptions are recorded under graft hybrids.
Mr. Reed: A seedling pecan tree owned by Mr. B. M. Young of Morgan City, Louisiana, was top worked with scions from the McAllister hican some seven or eight feet above ground, and later on the bark of the pecan trunk below the point of union became scaly like that of the hican above.
Professor Lake: That would suggest something worth while, if that part below would produce fruit like the part above, but I would want to question a little the modification in bark characteristics being a direct result of cross grafting.
Mr. Reed: Of course, it was no check—only one instance.
Professor Craig: There are one or two others that are authentic. I have known a case of plum. Here we have the plum stock, we will say it is Prunus Americana, grafted with Prunus triflora, the Japanese, then later on, Prunus domestica is put on top. I have seen a sprout from triflora bearing Japanese plums, while the top of the tree bore Prunus domestica, although there was only a small section of stem in there between our two distinct species. They were perfectly normal.
President Morris: Each elaborates its own kind of food in its own kind of cell. I would like to hear from Mr. Brown and Mr. Wilcox on this matter of grafting—the influence of stock on scion.
Mr. Wilcox: We had a good show of stocks, but instead of allowing them to become established in the pots, we grafted them as they started into growth after rooting. Had they been established, we would have expected better results.
Professor Craig: What method do you employ?
Mr. Wilcox: Side grafting.
Professor Craig: Do you mean whip grafting?
Mr. Wilcox: Side whip grafting.
Doctor Deming: I would like to ask Doctor Morris what he thinks of the practical future of grafting our hickory seedlings with improved varieties of hickory or pecan, and the method most likely to succeed,—whether grafting or budding, and at what season. It is important to learn whether we can so graft or bud our hickory sprouts that within a few years we can hope to get something from them.
President Morris: We can only make a parallel with the pecan. If we know that it requires fifteen or twenty years for coming into bearing as a seedling tree, and if we know that it bears frequently in two, three, or four years after being grafted we can anticipate analogous action with other species of hickories. I haven't been able to get testimony from men who have grafted hickories. One man told me he thought shagbark grafted upon other shagbark, topworked, came into bearing in seven or eight years. Another man told me that his came into bearing in a much shorter time than it would otherwise, while with one particular variety, the Hale, I think that twelve years has been required for the tree to come into bearing.
Doctor Deming: I have a communication from Mr. Hales in which he speaks of a tree grafted in 1880, but doesn't say when it began to bear.
Mr. Littlepage: He told me it has taken some of them twenty years.
Doctor Deming: But the pecan on hickory has been known to bear the second season, that is, topworked. Can we expect such results in topworking our own hickories?
Mr. Littlepage: I think so.
Doctor Deming: Are we going to have success in topworking, and by what method?
President Morris: I believe in the South they can graft, but in the North we have got to do it by budding. My best results have been late July or early August. I believe herbaceous budding promises a good deal.
Mr. Rush: Were those buds then of the year previous?.
President Morris: Those were buds from the year of the scion, and herbaceous stock of the year.
Doctor Deming: Mr. Littlepage has had some success in budding hickory very early, haven't you?
Mr. Littlepage: I was just stating that I started in last year to bud. I think it would be possible to make a pecan orchard bear early by budding into these hickories, ten, fifteen, or twenty years old. This next year I am going to try hickory on hickory. I am going to try three processes. I am going to try bark grafting, and whip grafting in the body of the tree which has been cut off. Then, I have quite a number of hickories each four or five inches in diameter that I have sawed off and allowed to put up clusters of water sprouts, and I am going to whip graft some and put paper sacks over them, and see which is the best.
President Morris: I have found budding the best.
Mr. Reed: Doctor Morris referred to the analogy of the pecan grafted on pecan as coming into bearing in two years. Do you account for that in the fact of its being a graft, or the fact that the wood you selected came from a tree that had the characteristic of early bearing?
President Morris: No doubt that characteristic was transmitted, and further, no doubt the grafted stock was used from bearing wood. Those points are all of interest.
Mr. Reed: Does the mere operation of grafting or budding influence earliness of bearing?
President Morris: Yes, if I understand the question rightly. A tree that might not bear for fifteen years as a seedling may bear in three years grafted.
Mr. Rush: I have Persian walnuts that bore two fine nuts the second year. I have young trees, one about thirty inches, and I am sure it will be full of nuts next year, unless some providential misfortune should intervene.
Mr. Reed: At what age did the original trees begin to bear?
Mr. Rush: Those were buds shipped to me from California.
Mr. Littlepage: I am firmly convinced that there is something in the process of budding or grafting that stimulates the growth. For example, I have scions that were not over four to eight inches long grafted on one year seedling pecans which, at the end of this season's growth, were as much as thirty inches high. All along in the same row where seedling pecans were not grafted, there is none over eighteen inches high.
Mr. Reed: To have made exact comparison, you would have had to take buds from your seedling nursery trees, and graft on other trees. You are comparing these buds from one tree with seedlings of another.
Professor Lake: I would like to ask if you didn't bud or graft the best stocks in the row too?
Mr. Littlepage: We took the whole row, as we came to it, but that particular tree might have been on some particularly favorable stock. It is a matter of a good deal of interest to see why a seedling which wasn't budded at all didn't grow as high as a scion which was budded in summer, stratified all winter, then put into the ground in an unnatural position.
Professor Craig: It is the same principle, I think, which we discover in pruning. If we prune heavily during the dormant season, the effect is increased vegetative growth. If we wish to stimulate the growth of an old tree somewhat debilitated, we go to work and cut off a large portion of the top. We don't disturb the root. The effect is that with the same amount of pushing power from the root, we have a decreased area over which that energy is spread, and it results in apparently increased growth. I am not quite sure if we were to measure it up in a scientific way, we would actually find it was increased growth. There are fewer branches, but they have made greater length. In the case of grafting our pecans, we cut off our tops, set a two-bud scion in the root, and usually but one starts and receives all the vigor from the established root, instead of the vigor being distributed over several buds on the original seedling top. We have as a result of that concentration of vitality increased growth. I think that theoretical explanation will stand fairly well, because it seems to be directly in line with the effect of winter pruning.
Mr. Reed: I would like to ask Professor Craig to what extent he would select seed for nursery purposes? What influence would the characters of the parent tree from which the seed came have on the grafted tree?
Professor Craig: I don't believe that we can expect the characters of our stock to affect the scion to any extent. I think what the nurserymen should have in mind and keep in mind is a good, vigorous stock, and as many stocks as possible,—as he can get out of a pound of nuts. Otherwise, I don't think it cuts much figure. In that connection there is a principle which I have discovered by experience, namely, that if you are growing stocks it is wise to get your nuts as near your own locality as possible. My experience last year in planting five hundred pounds of northern grown nuts in a southern locality, and five hundred pounds of southern grown nuts in the same locality, gathered in that locality, is that I got fifty per cent more trees from my southern grown nuts than northern, and trees that were fully thirty per cent better.
Mr. Littlepage: Where were your northern grown nuts stratified?
Professor Craig: They were not stratified. They were planted as soon as they were received, and they were received within two weeks from the time they were taken from the trees.
Mr. Littlepage: I am inclined to believe that if your northern grown nuts had been stratified in the North, and undergone the customary freezing and thawing, then had been taken up in the spring, you wouldn't have seen that difference.
Professor Craig: I think that point is well taken.
President Morris: There is no doubt about that. In that same connection—I would choose nuts for seed purposes of a mean type, for the reason that nature is all the while establishing a mean. The big pecan is a freak. If you plant big or small nuts, you don't get big or small nuts in return. You get both big and little seeking a mean.
Mr. Roper: The large nut will give a better tree. We have tested that out.
President Morris: Does that work out logically in that way, is it a comparative matter all the time?
Mr. Roper: We haven't worked that out in the bearing, but in the nuts in the row, the small nuts did not produce as large trees as the large nuts. We never tested the mean nuts. We did select some of the very smallest we had, and planted one of the northern and one of the southern type. They came up, but the trees amounted to nothing.
President Morris: The idea I meant to convey was that both very small and very large nuts are freaks, and neither likely to give as good a tree as mean types. What would you anticipate, Professor Craig?
Professor Craig: I think that would resolve itself on a practical basis from the practical standpoint. I think the mean or average sized nut would give you the best results. There is no doubt, as Mr. Roper said, the very small nut would give you weak seedlings. On the other hand, you couldn't afford to use the very largest, so that a mean between large and small would be the natural thing to choose. But we should do nothing to discourage the planting of the finest specimens, with the possibility of getting something unusually good. That is certainly the work for every amateur.
Professor Lake: Does that statement, that you think it doesn't make much difference about the parent of the nuts for stock, apply to walnuts?
Professor Craig: I haven't had any experience in walnuts.
Mr. Littlepage: I would like to ask Mr. Roper if he knows of any examples where selection of fine varieties of seed has not resulted in getting a more productive variety of the plant which he was producing?
Mr. Roper: Only one, and that wasn't in a tree.
President Morris: In regard to coming true to type, I think records have been made of many thousands of pecans, and I don't know of any instance where the progeny resembled the parent closely.
Mr. Pomeroy: Maybe someone could explain one of my failures a few years ago in planting some Persian walnuts. I went to another tree in western New York, and got a peck or more. They were planted the same day, in the same ground, and all came up. Those I got from another tree resembled a hill of beans, and stayed that way for three years. Why wouldn't those grow? In soil three feet from those, there were trees growing. Those nuts never did make trees. The nuts were of good size.
Colonel Van Duzee: As a practical nurseryman, I wouldn't think of planting nuts from a tree that I didn't know individually. We have had very much better success with nursery stock where we have chosen as seed medium sized nuts from vigorous trees with which we were acquainted. In the case of Mr. Pomeroy, I don't think there is any question but that the history of his tree would account for the failure. In other words, his nursery stock was undoubtedly from the results of years of slow growth on the part of the original tree, or unfavorable conditions of some kind. I don't quite agree with Professor Craig on the question of the influence of stock, because I believe it is really a very important point.
President Morris: We are not here to agree upon anything.
Colonel Van Duzee: I can't speak from the scientific standpoint, but I am quite sure that in the nursery business I shouldn't care to overlook that influence.
President Morris: When men agree, it means we are on stale old ground which has been thrashed over.