Mr. Reed: Yes sir, we hold it back.
J. F. Wilkinson: Do you find it any advantage to cut your leaflets off before you bud?
Mr. Reed: I haven't tried that enough to know. When you were at our place some of them had been trimmed in full leaf and had dropped the leaf stalk, and some had been cut off three weeks and still didn't let loose. We can tell more next spring as I kept a record of that.
Mr. Pomeroy: How do you know when it is ripe enough?
Mr. Reed: I don't think a man lives who knows exactly. You have to use your own judgment. For instance, when bud wood colors up like this I would feel sure it was ripe enough. When it is green I am more afraid of it, although we have some good success with the green wood, but cold storage wood is still better.
Dr. Morris: Professor Van Deman said the other day that in cutting bud wood at this time of year it is good to give the bud rest for two or three days. He cuts the scions and puts them in the ice house. That gives them rest and the buds start better and are firmer. Has anyone had experience with that way?
Mr. Dorr: There is another question I want to ask. If we want to experiment with the processes that have been suggested here, shouldn't Evansville have a place where we can store scions? We should have an ice house. Some of us who don't have shoes, haven't any ice house. I worked in South Carolina one time and made this discovery, and it almost made me weak. The great majority of farmers in South Carolina are men who make fifty dollars a year; they cultivate three acres and own a mule in partnership with two or three other men. Suppose some enthusiast like this man plants an orchard there. What inducement has he for that kind of work? The dream I have had here for Evansville, which is my home, is to bring some of that kind of work into the high schools.
Mr. White: In regard to the point brought out by Dr. Morris about cold storage bud wood, I believe that it is better for being chilled. We have found it hastens the callous. The same theory has been borne out by the work of the Department of Agriculture in propagating the blueberry. They found it would not callous and form roots unless they chilled it. Isn't that right, Mr. Close?
Proffessor Close: I don't remember that.
Mr. White: I think all wood must be frozen or chilled, or put in cold storage, before it will take well. I found that by putting scions in cold storage they callous much more readily. Where the temperature is near the freezing point walnut and pecan wood will callous more readily. On some that I took out on the 31st of July I had written the names, and the callous had formed until we could scarcely read the names. In a week or ten days the callous was around them. On new wood, it would take twice as long.