Mr. Bechtel: Doesn't it melt too much in the sun?
Dr. Morris: It might with you and you might need to use a harder paraffin. There are a great many kinds of paraffin. The paraffin series is a large one in chemistry. The one I find best for our locality is the common parowax that you can find in any grocery store. I use just the pure straight thing but in your country you are further south and may need a different one. It does melt some in the middle of a hot day and will be nearly fluid sometimes but it hardens up when the sun goes down.
Mr. Foster: Were the grafts kept in cold storage?
Dr. Morris: I have used two ways of keeping grafts for top working. Some have been kept in cold storage, others have been kept in the ice house. I have been in the habit of kicking up the sawdust and dropping scions in the hole not very far above the ice. Last year I could not get any ice and two years ago I could not get any but the scions kept just as well in the sawdust near the ground. Then I have kept them packed in leaves with two feet of leaves on top of the scions. I have also kept some as Mr. Jones has but the difficulty is in keeping them at the right degree of moisture. The enzymes go to work the minute the cells of the scion have a full charge of water despite low temperature unless it is actually below freezing. Scions of another kind are the ones that I cut off from one tree and put on the next tree the same hour or day. That has only been possible by this method that I now employ. Almost any time in the summer we can do that without keeping the scions in storage at all. I gave some of them a resting period experimentally for a day or two but to no advantage.
Prof. Close: Don't you have to be pretty careful with the melted paraffin so as not to injure the tissue?
Dr. Morris: Yes we need special apparatus. I took a lantern, cut out the top and sunk a spun cup down in the lantern. On a cold day I turn the alcohol flame higher than in a warm day. I have been trying to have this lantern made so that it could be got on the market. There is nothing else to my knowledge that will allow the grafter to regulate the temperature of melted wax according to the weather. I am going to get it manufactured so you can each have one.
Mr. Bixby: There is a series of paraffines pure paraffines which are known only in chemical laboratories and also a number which can be obtained without much difficulty. The common parowax I think is the grade that is known in the trade as 120. That is it melts at 120 degrees F. but paraffin can be obtained without much difficulty that melts at 125°, 128° and 130°, so if the parowax is too soft for Mr. Bechtel's district I am sure he can get something that will be all right. He might have to send to New York to get it but it is readily obtained there.
Mr. Bechtel: I have used bees wax and find that that melts at a higher temperature.
Dr. Morris: I want complete transparency.
Mr. Foster: Would it be out of order for a beginner to ask what type of grafting Dr. Morris uses in his work on these trees.