Mr. Slate: What are the prospects of planting those low-grafted trees rather deep?
Mr. Bush: I think that if the roots started to die the grafted tree would start a root above the graft. The sap is going up from the root. It will go down and the root will start above the graft and go out above the graft, thus getting the tree on its own root.
Mr. Stoke: Since we got onto grafting, do you mind if I say a word? Here is a four-branch, top-worked specimen that I chopped off and brought with me. This first tree limb was still alive and had nuts on it, the second was dying and a third dead. This fourth union was still alive, but it was badly damaged, too. That's Illinois 31 -4 on Japanese. Here is another graft of Illinois 31 -4 on Japanese in a small tree, and if that's poor union, I am no grafter!
Mr. Hardy: Mr. Stoke, may I ask you this: Is this [small graft] on the same tree as this? [Indicating larger tree first referred to.]
Mr. Stoke: No. Those four grafts, you see, all went bad. This one is in perfect condition. But I am having a hard time keeping that Illinois 31 -4 alive. I had a union on mollissima three inches in diameter and as perfect as this, two years ago. Last year it began to bulge at the point of union. The top wasn't feeding back to the root, and this year it is in bad condition,—foliage very small and it put on a very full crop of burs which will never mature, and it's going to pass out. It is about four inches in diameter now.
Last year to try to beat this thing I cut out the crown of a small mollissima at the below-ground level and put in several grafts of this same Illinois 31 -4, and I got a nice growth, at least four feet high. When I dug it up to transplant it—it was right in my garden—I found I had a large callus more than an inch and a half in diameter at the union but no roots. I reset it, and I haven't ventured to see whether it was all right or not. This spring I tried again.
I have four little trees, one as high as my head, the others smaller. I grafted each one on branch roots just as they lay in the ground. Didn't dig them up and they grew nicely, and along in July I went around and spaded them deeply and thought perhaps that would produce roots. About a week ago I examined one. I have a magnificent callus but no roots yet above the union. What the ultimate results will be I don't know.
With that particular hybrid I want to try one more thing. I want to grow seedlings of the European chestnut, cut them below the ground, graft Illinois 31 -4 on the root and it may make a union that will not fail, because the European is a very robust grower, and by being grafted under the ground the stock will be away from blight organisms.
[Editor's Note: Mr. C. A. Reed is naming this variety (Ill. 31-4)
"Colby" in honor of the originator, Dr. Arthur S. Colby.]
Mr. Hirschi: I would like to say I put on hybrids similar to that Illinois 31 -4 and they grew the first year, and just made a bulky knot right at the point of union and died the second year.