In 1934 the Ohio Nut Growers Association conducted a black walnut nut contest. I read about it in the Ohio Farmer. As soon as the names of the winners appeared in that publication, each owner was contacted for some nuts from the prize winning trees. Answers were received from nine of the 10 winners. I did not receive nuts from the Hoover tree. The Brown nuts I planted came up in 1935 and the trees are now 22 feet high, with spread of 22 feet, and are 27 Inches in circumference. The Tritten prize nuts were planted in a fence row. These did not come up the first year. The next year I plowed and disked the patch of ground and planted potatoes. To my surprise the Tritten seedlings came up with the potatoes. I let them grow and I now have five trees from these nuts. All of these trees produce nuts which resemble the original Tritten nut and have good cracking quality. One in particular fills out nicely, has a very thin hull, and is a little larger than the original Tritten. I have named it the Shessler. The Brown seedling trees also produce good nuts. The seedling trees from the Cowle nuts produce nuts with rough shells.
Following my nut planting project I began to collect scions from all of the original trees. Mr. Homer Jacobs, of Kent, Ohio, supplied me with scions from the Tritten tree. The next year Mr. Jacobs asked me to send him scions from the Brown tree as he intended to bench-graft some. I have planted nuts along a road 80 rods long, so that I could have many stocks to top-work. I began to graft in 1935, using the seedling trees as stock. I now have 200 seedling black walnut trees, 100 grafted black walnut trees, 25 grafted Persian walnuts, 20 chestnut trees, two "buartnuts," 15 heartnuts, six pecans, one butternut, 20 grafted hickory trees and five persimmons. Some of these trees are planted in orchard form, others are scattered along fence rows.
For grafting, I cut scions so that there is about four inches of two-year-old wood at the base and some one-year-old wood with small matured buds. These small buds will grow, as a rule. The scions are kept in damp sawdust until used. I like the stock to be a half to one inch in diameter. I wait until the trees are in full leaf before I graft. After leafing out the stock does not bleed. If I find that the stock is bleeding hard when I cut back, I wait a few days before grafting. It is a waste of time to graft when the stock is bleeding. I have grafted very early when the bark would not bleed at all. I just dug down into the cambium layer and put in the scion. I tried one Persian and three black walnuts like this and all grew. I use the slot bark method of grafting, as described in Mr. Reed's bulletin [U.S.D.A. Farmers Bull. 1501]. The stock is cut straight across and I put the lower bud just above the bark on the outside. I roughen the bark of the scion that fits just behind the bark of the stock. A small nail is pushed through the bark and scion with the handle of my knife. I generally tie with cord but sometimes when the bark is heavy I do not use cord. A two-pound paper sack with a hole on the earth side is placed over the graft and the sack is tied at the bottom. This serves as a "hot house" and protects the scion from rain. As soon as leaves appear on the scion, the sack is removed and all the new sprouts are broken off below the graft. I put only one scion on each graft. I use Beck's cold wax. It is easy to thin with water and I just flatten a stick for my brush. I never wax the bud but wax scion well on top.
I cannot give an accurate count of my grafting success but estimate that 75 percent of my grafts live. Rather than keep records I use that time to graft more trees. I am not an experimenter—I simply like to have grafted nut trees. My own trees are scattered over a two-mile area. I have grafted trees in Toledo and Grand Rapids. Every Sunday I attend church, then in the afternoon I graft trees. My aim is to try all the promising trees and select the best and weed out the poor ones. I am saving only the trees that bear nuts every year.
In 1947, I grafted the Ohio 1946 prize winning black walnuts. I achieved survival on all except Nos. 5 and 8. The scionwood of these two was in poor condition and I did not think they would live. I also have No. 54 which looks promising to me. I am looking forward to other contests in Ohio and elsewhere so that we can uncover some more superior black walnuts.
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President Davidson: Thank you, Mr. Shessler.
Mr. Slate, will you say a word to us on grafting? That's right along the same line.
Grafting Walnuts in the Greenhouse
GEORGE L. SLATE, State Experiment Station, Geneva, N. Y.