Mr. Rush: It is better on top. Sometimes the grafting has an effect upon the stock just at the union. If it is budded low, it blights. The bark gets loose. All those that are grafted high are doing remarkably well.
President Morris: The next on the list is Doctor Deming's paper on "Nut Promotions."
Doctor Deming: I will read first a communication from Mr. Henry Hales of Ridgewood, New Jersey.
HALES' PAPER SHELL HICKORY.
My shagbark (paper shell) hickory tree was on my farm when I bought it in 1868. It had been noticed by the neighbors as bearing a fine nut and was watched by them for the nuts, but they did not appreciate the value of them. The late Andrew S. Fuller had not seen them, but asked me to bring him a few. When he saw them he was surprised and at once pronounced them the finest hickories he had ever seen, and named them "Hales' Paper Shell." The hickory is one of the most valuable of North American nuts. It is of a variable nature. I have over twenty old trees on my place, and no two bear nuts of the same shape or size, and although some neighbors planted some nuts from the old tree and produced fruit from them they were only ordinary sized, so that it is necessary to propagate them to retain their value. About 1880 Parsons & Son, of Flushing, N. Y., grafted some in pots under glass, from which trees these nuts sent are the product. The fruit is fully as fine as the original tree. Prof. C. B. Sargent of the Arnold Arboretum has taken great interest in the nut. I have two trees grafted on wild saplings by Jackson Dawson near bearing size.
Those are the only trees successfully grafted, out of thousands done in the North outside, from which I am afraid grafting outside in the North is a failure on hickory stocks. There may be a better chance on pecan stock, which I have not thoroughly tested under favorable circumstances. I have been sending northern pecan nuts and had them planted, and sent scions for working on them in the South; had some failures from natural causes. Simpson Bros. of Monticello, Florida, have had fair success there. My share of two year old trees are on the way here. Of the value of these nuts too much cannot be said. Mr. Fuller ranked them superior to the Madeira nut. It has remarkable keeping qualities.
It has taken from eighteen to twenty-five years for my grafted trees to come into bearing.
I earnestly hope that with the knowledge gained so far, the means of propagation on a large scale will soon be discovered and successfully carried on. What a gain it would be to the wealth of our food production and luxury. The American hickory would then stand highest on the list of our native nuts.