DR. MORRIS: Yes, I buy what they call parawax.
QUESTION: It is not necessary to wrap a scion with raffia if it is fastened with screws?
DR. MORRIS: No. After it is screwed you don't have to use raffia. I use either screws or raffia. In a large one like this the screw is preferable. In a smaller one the raffia would suffice. It is the plain splice graft that I use almost to the exclusion of anything else.
MR. WEBER: Wouldn't it assist the union, if the graft didn't make a perfect fit, to wrap it with raffia to hold it together?
DR. MORRIS: Possibly, but I think with the plane one can make a perfect fit. That is the idea at any rate. After three weeks of growth that will stand any storm.
QUESTION: How do you tell when the paraffin is the right temperature?
DR. MORRIS: That is very much as a woman does in cooking. You put in so much of everything. It is a matter of experience. I get it very hot but not hot enough to scald. The idea is to have it hot enough and to have it very thin. On one occasion my light went out when I was grafting walnut trees. It went out when I was grafting the very last tree. I put in perhaps twenty or thirty grafts in all. All the other grafts caught but on that tree, after my light went out, only one caught. In examining into the philosophy of it a week later I found that the paraffin, being a little too thick, had cracked.
QUESTION: When is the best time to do the grafting?
DR. MORRIS: I think the best time is after the sap season in the spring; all through the latter part of May and in June and the first half of July.
QUESTION: Do you use paraffin of a particular melting point?