President Morris: Yes, if I understand the question rightly. A tree that might not bear for fifteen years as a seedling may bear in three years grafted.
Mr. Rush: I have Persian walnuts that bore two fine nuts the second year. I have young trees, one about thirty inches, and I am sure it will be full of nuts next year, unless some providential misfortune should intervene.
Mr. Reed: At what age did the original trees begin to bear?
Mr. Rush: Those were buds shipped to me from California.
Mr. Littlepage: I am firmly convinced that there is something in the process of budding or grafting that stimulates the growth. For example, I have scions that were not over four to eight inches long grafted on one year seedling pecans which, at the end of this season's growth, were as much as thirty inches high. All along in the same row where seedling pecans were not grafted, there is none over eighteen inches high.
Mr. Reed: To have made exact comparison, you would have had to take buds from your seedling nursery trees, and graft on other trees. You are comparing these buds from one tree with seedlings of another.
Professor Lake: I would like to ask if you didn't bud or graft the best stocks in the row too?
Mr. Littlepage: We took the whole row, as we came to it, but that particular tree might have been on some particularly favorable stock. It is a matter of a good deal of interest to see why a seedling which wasn't budded at all didn't grow as high as a scion which was budded in summer, stratified all winter, then put into the ground in an unnatural position.
Professor Craig: It is the same principle, I think, which we discover in pruning. If we prune heavily during the dormant season, the effect is increased vegetative growth. If we wish to stimulate the growth of an old tree somewhat debilitated, we go to work and cut off a large portion of the top. We don't disturb the root. The effect is that with the same amount of pushing power from the root, we have a decreased area over which that energy is spread, and it results in apparently increased growth. I am not quite sure if we were to measure it up in a scientific way, we would actually find it was increased growth. There are fewer branches, but they have made greater length. In the case of grafting our pecans, we cut off our tops, set a two-bud scion in the root, and usually but one starts and receives all the vigor from the established root, instead of the vigor being distributed over several buds on the original seedling top. We have as a result of that concentration of vitality increased growth. I think that theoretical explanation will stand fairly well, because it seems to be directly in line with the effect of winter pruning.
Mr. Reed: I would like to ask Professor Craig to what extent he would select seed for nursery purposes? What influence would the characters of the parent tree from which the seed came have on the grafted tree?