(29) An English walnut tree near the garden gate is growing thriftily, making sometimes four feet in a year, but as a seedling has not borne as yet.
(30) Pecan seedling with buds of Busseron recently inserted. They are fastened in place with waxed muslin and then painted with ordinary white paint. I use that a great deal in place of grafting wax, but make the paint thick and heavy so that little free oil runs in between the cambium layers when grafting or budding. Paint seems to be harder and better than liquid grafting wax if it has no free oil.
(31) A rapidly growing Chinese walnut (Juglans sinensis). Very much like Juglans regia. The nuts have prominent sutures and the kernel is rather more oily than that of the English walnut, but of very good quality, nevertheless.
(32) A number of hickory trees of different species grafted by my favorite method, unless we call it "budding." I call it "the slice graft," and have not known any one else to try it. A slice of bark from one inch to four inches in length is removed from the stock and this area is fitted with a slice of about the same length and breadth, carrying a bud or spur cut from the guest variety. On one of these young hickories you observe I made three slice grafts and all of them have taken with a very thrifty growth of the Taylor variety. One point of importance, I believe, is to have the slice from the guest variety a trifle smaller than the slice from the host stock. The guest slice is bound firmly to the host with waxed muslin.
(33) Paragon chestnut heavily loaded with burs. This particular tree is said to belong to a variety that is much advertised, but there is some question if it is a peculiar variety of the Paragon, because Mr. Engel, of Pennsylvania, is said to have furnished his own Paragon chestnut scions when the other people were short of stock. If the nursery firm that has put out this Paragon chestnut on the market with so much vigor and at such expense had been a little more frank everybody would have profited. They have made a point of advertising the Paragon chestnut as blight resistant, which it is not; consequently, the country is full of disappointed customers. The dealers should have said something more or less as follows: "This chestnut blights freely, but it bears so well and so abundantly and with such a good nut that people can afford to plant it in large acreage and let it blight, carrying it along with about the degree of attention that one would naturally give to good apple trees." Had the dealers only said something like that, the members of our Association who receive very many letters from all over the country asking about this particular chestnut would have advised its purchase in large quantities. Prospective customers are shy of nurserymen in general. They write to members of our Association asking who is reliable. People have learned what we stand for.
(34) A hybrid between a pecan and a bitternut hickory. A large handsome thin shelled nut, but bitter. The great vigor of growth of the seedlings of this hybrid, which comes from Mr. G. M. Brown, of Van Buren, Ark., would seem to make this hybrid variety of remarkable value as grafting stock for other hickories. The nuts are exceptional in carrying the type form of progeny.
(35) Two rows of many species of nut trees planted in thick glazed earthenware pots. The pots are about four feet in depth and with round perforations. I had these made to order. I sunk them in the ground to the level of the rim and then planted these trees in the pots under the impression that they would remain dwarfed on account of the confinement of the roots, and that I would have a conveniently placed series for experiments in hybridization. The experiment was not a success. I knew that growing trees would move rocks, but had no idea that roots protruding through these holes in heavy glazed earthenware would be able to break the pots. The roots have done just that, and whenever a tree in a pot becomes large enough the protruding roots break the pot to pieces, and the tree marches straight along to its original destiny.
(36) One of a group of European chestnuts from seed brought me by Major L. L. Seaman. The parent tree is famous in England for its enormous size and heavy bearing; it is said to be centuries of age and is growing upon the estate of Sir George B. Hingley, Droitwich, Worcestershire, England. My young trees are growing very thriftily. They are showing some blight spots, but this has been controlled by cutting out and painting.
(37) A group of vigorous young trees, the result of placing pecan pollen on the pistillate trees of Siebold walnut. They show the Siebold parentage so distinctly that I imagine them to be parthenogens, but we cannot tell to a certainty until they bear fruit.
(38) A hillside set out with a large number of common bush chinkapins from the East, tree chinkapins from Missouri and a number of hybrids. The chinkapins and the alder-leaved chestnuts on this side hill have been so blight resistant as to require almost no attention, and for that reason I am making hybrids between the chinkapin and the alder-leaved chestnut and the Chinese chestnut in the hope of making an excellent combination of chinkapin quality and Chinese size. Up to the present time none of my hybrids have been as valuable as either parent, with the exception of two. Two of the hybrids bear nuts about the size of the average American sweet chestnut and of first rate quality. These two hybrid trees have shown no sign of blight as yet.