MR. MCCOY: Well, why should they rot?
MR. JONES: That is like a good many other things, Mr. McCoy. We don't know why.
MR. LITTLEPAGE: A pecan top-worked on a water hickory will sometimes kill the whole tree, top and all. It is the top that does it.
MR. M. P. REED: This year we made some observations of different varieties, as to time of leafing out, and we found the Eastern varieties leafed out about the first of April, and the Franquette and Mayette about the fifth of May, and one variety we got from the Department, No. 39,884, didn't leaf out until the twenty-fifth of May. That seemed to indicate that the French varieties were going to prove better than the Eastern varieties, because late frosts cannot hurt the blossoms.
MR. LITTLEPAGE: That is correct. I watched them this spring at Mr. McCoy's. Franquette and Mayette, over there and with us, were anywhere from ten days to two weeks later leafing out. Some of the buds were entirely dormant and some just bursting when many of our Eastern varieties were in full leaf. But my experience here in Maryland on walnut trees from all sections was that every one winter-killed except one Nebo tree and a top-worked Potomac. I have a Potomac which has made ten to twelve feet of growth, and it didn't winter-kill the slightest, and my Nebo tree hasn't winter-killed any, but the Franquette, the Meylan, the Rush, the Holden, and several others winter-killed very badly. At least, Mr. McMurran said that was what it was, and I thought it was, too.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, Mr. Littlepage, isn't "winter-killing" rather a relative term, dependent partly upon the climate and partly upon the condition of the tree at the end of the growing season? Was there anything back of your statement, any late growing, or something of that sort?
MR. LITTLEPAGE: Well, they didn't grow any later than the Potomac grew, but that tree was top-worked about five or six feet above the ground and I think that makes them hardier.
A MEMBER: Were the winter-killed trees cultivated late?
MR. LITTLEPAGE: Yes; and fertilized heavily.
THE PRESIDENT: Haven't you answered your own question?