Many years ago when I learned my profession, we had difficulty in finding a method to graft oaks. We finally did find a method that would take and which I have found successful with hickories.
The stocks are dug in the fall and stored heeled in earth. When I am ready to graft I put them on a table, along with the scion wood and start grafting. I use the side graft at the crown leaving a short spur above the graft. Leave them unwaxed and layer them in moss peat in a glass covered frame in the greenhouse with some ventilation. In three or four weeks' time, when the union has formed and just before the leaves come out, take them out and plant them in a cold frame outside. Of course you have to put glass on it to protect them from frost, as well as intense sun. Here you can use part peat and part soil. Leave them there for one year in those frames, with partial shade, until they get fairly high so they shade each other. They can then be set in the nursery row.
MR. O'ROURKE: Mr. Bernath, I know there are some folks here who are nurserymen and who are interested in the cost of production of a finished tree. Do you feel that you can produce a tree to transplant any height you want to select, five, six feet, so on, as cheaply according to this method of bench grafting in the greenhouse as if you bud it or graft it in a nursery row?
MR. BERNATH: That's a question. I have never kept a record of that. It is all right for a young man who is able to get down on his hands and knees and graft, but for me that wouldn't do.
MR. FERGUSON: What temperature do you use in the frames?
MR. BERNATH: About 65. Sun heat naturally will raise it. Care must be used to ventilate the frames in the greenhouse to prevent condensation soaking the grafts.
MR. FERGUSON: Do you carry higher temperatures for walnuts?
MR. BERNATH: All of them about the same. You follow the method just the same as nature. If you follow nature, you will never go wrong. But you have to watch out for fungus in the case, because if you have excessive temperature, the fungus disease will get in your case and ruin the whole thing.
MR. WARD: I presume, Mr. Bernath, when you set out a tree and get a hundred per cent stand it's going to reduce your cost.
MR. BERNATH: Yes, because you have a better take, because you have everything under control, moisture, heat, ventilation, and so on.