BAUER, shagbark—Has borne well, is of good size, good quality and cracks well. It is also a very good shaped nut. We consider it to be one of the very good hickories.
CEDAR RAPIDS, shagbark—While our graft of this variety has borne but moderately, we consider it to be a very good variety. It is of good size, cracks well, is of good quality and attractive shape.
HINES, shagbark—While our graft of this variety has borne well, cracks well and is of good quality, it is so small that we have never propagated it for sale.
INDEPENDENCE, shagbark—The nuts of this variety are so small that we have paid little attention to it.
FOX, shagbark—This variety is in fifth place in order of ripening.
Fox won first prize in the 1934 N.N.G.A. contest. But there is a deep mystery connected with this variety as subsequent crops, grown on grafts, have not produced nuts of such top qualities. There have been many theories advanced but no one has solved the mystery yet. One theory is that there is bud variation in the parent tree and that Mr. Fox, quite naturally, cut scion wood from the lower parts of the tree, which were most readily accessible. During the war, I secured a special allotment of gasoline and made the trip to Fonda, N. Y., to cut scions from all parts of the tree. The scions from the various parts of the tree were labeled separately and were grafted on stocks in our test orchard. While not all of these grafts lived, we have living grafts from nearly all parts of the tree. I note that at least one of these grafts has nuts on it this year. If there is bud variation we hope that we will have at least some grafts of the superior Fox nuts.
In spite of all this, Fox is an excellent variety, being of good size, cracks well, and is of very good quality. While it is fifth in order of ripening, it is still an early hickory and will succeed considerably farther north than our location.
In sixth place we have two varieties, namely; Clark and Stocking.
CLARK, shagbark—Our graft of this variety has borne well, the nuts being of good size, crack well and are of good quality. We consider it to be a very good variety.
STOCKING, shagbark x bitternut—While our graft has grown very well, it has produced but very few nuts. We were not very greatly impressed with these.