J. F. WILKINSON, Rockport, Indiana
In pioneering a nursery as we did in the early days of propagation of Northern nut trees, especially the pecan, it was necessary to first locate parent trees in this section that were worthy of propagation, in order that the nursery stock produced from them would be hardy in this and more northern territory.
Along the Ohio and Wabash rivers and their tributaries many thousands of large seedling pecan trees grew naturally, and to locate some of the most worthy ones for propagation took the combined efforts of all of us in this section who were interested, as well as the aid of the tree owners and nut gatherers.
In the year 1910 three nut nurseries were established here in Southern Indiana, two of which have long since been discontinued. Before that time a very few propagated pecan trees had been produced in an experimental way by some fruit tree nurserymen.
Little did I realize at that time the trials and headaches that lay in the path I was to travel in this venture, such as locating the parent trees, securing the graft and budwood from them, learning to keep this wood from time of cutting until used, methods of propagation, trying to educate the prospective tree buyer as to the value of these trees, and to believe that pecan trees could be transplanted, and that they would bear if the taproot had been cut, and many other things.
Production of nut trees in nurseries in this northern territory is so different, and more difficult than in the Gulf Coast country, where I spent a part of two seasons hoping to get information that would be of value here. What I learned there was of little or no value here, so it was up to us to solve our own problems in this section by experience, as there was very little in print at that time on Northern nut tree propagation.
One of our first problems was to learn to keep cions from time of cutting until time of use, not knowing when that time was. We tried all times from March until May, having little success at any time. At first we kept the scions in a cold storage plant in Evansville, and at a temperature of around 32 degrees, and in wet moss. Later we found it much better to keep scions at home in a cellar at a higher temperature, and in only slightly dampened sphagnum moss.
In the beginning our efforts were mostly in grafting, then after a year or two of failure, probably largely due to the way we kept our scions, we had some results at the McCoy Nursery, with scions kept at home. The McCoy Nursery was about four miles from my place, and located in a sandy soil with a near quicksand sub-soil. At that location they were later reasonably successful in grafting, using the modified cleft graft.
My nursery is in clay soil with a hard stratum of soil three or four feet below the surface, and because of this I have been unable to graft pecans in the nursery, though I have tried every known method, and under all conditions. I could successfully graft at the McCoy Nursery, then use the same scion wood and the same method at home, but have a complete failure; therefore, I turned to budding entirely on pecans in the nursery.
It is somewhat different with walnut—I can get fair results with walnut grafting at times, though I do very little of this, as more than 95% of my walnut trees are produced by budding.
I do a lot of topworking on native seedling nut trees for others. Mr. Sly, who is with me, and I make one or more of these trips each spring. For this work I use only the slip-bark method, shaping the scion a little differently from any other I have ever seen used. This has given splendid results everywhere I have used it, which has been over the territory from Ohio to Oklahoma.
A certain amount of allowance is made in this work as to safe drainage of the stock, depending on weather and soil conditions, which vary as, to season and location.
I do practically all of my nursery propagating by budding, and one of the most essential things is to have favorable sap conditions in budwood as well as in stocks.
On walnut I use only the current season's growth of wood for budwood, and it must be reasonably well matured. Very often sap in the stock may show signs of leaving before budwood is matured enough for use, and only the riper buds near the base of the bud stick can be used, in which case the rest of the buds on the bud stick are lost. Sometimes sap in the stocks can be held a few days longer by cutting a ring around the stock above the place where the bud is to be placed, which checks the flow of sap to the upper part of the stock. Sap in the stock must be in a favorable condition to hope for good results.
In budding pecan it is different. Either the current or the past season's growth may be used with about equal results, though the current season's buds must be well matured. Very often in a dry season when there is evidence of sap leaving the pecan stocks earlier than usual and the current season's buds are not well matured, I use the past season's growth until the new growth is mature.
A nut tree nurseryman has experiences that are both pleasant and unpleasant in selling trees as well as producing them. This is probably well known to all of you who have produced and sold nut trees. It is astonishing how many questions (some of which are amusing) the public can ask, and very often those that ask the most questions, leading one to believe they are a good prospect for a large order, may order only one or two trees, or none at all. Then there are those who have never bought a nut tree before, and when they see their first one are dissatisfied because it does not have a root system like a fruit tree; and there are a few who will try to get replacements whether they are entitled to them or not, and usually they are not; for, regardless of the instructions given for the planting and after-care, they will neglect them, then complain if they have a loss, and certain experiences have led me to believe they claim loss before having it.
Many seem to think that a nurseryman should guarantee his trees to live when planted by the purchaser. To do this would be assuming the responsibility of the handling, planting and after-care of the planter, which would make it necessary for the nurseryman to put a price on his trees that would take care of a lot of replacements to the more careless ones who would have losses, and be very unfair to those who take good care of their trees, and have little or no loss, as they would be standing part of the loss of the careless ones.
The most a nurseryman can do is to produce the best trees possible, dig them carefully, pack them in first class condition and ship them immediately.