MR. LITTLEPAGE: Well, I won't grow trees if they do not grow better than that.
MR. MCCOY: Mr. Littlepage may think he has answered this question, and these other gentlemen may think they have answered it in a different way, but there are some rather peculiar phenomena there. I don't question the sincerity of these gentlemen, but I don't think they have answered the question. Whenever you transplant these trees and whenever you get to growing them in big quantities, you will have certain peculiar phenomena that you are not certain at first as to just what is the cause. Mr. White is just as near right when he says they kill in July as Mr. Littlepage when he says they winter-kill in December. And I will just say to people who buy walnut trees from our firm that when they transplant them under the same conditions as Mr. Littlepage, they may expect similar results.
MR. LITTLEPAGE: I have never seen a northern pecan winter-kill.
MR. MCCOY: Oh, I have.
MR. MCMURRAN: Mr. President, this term "winter-killing" is a little bit misleading, and it has been a matter of discussion in the National Nut Growers' Association for several years and a great loss to many Southern pecan growers. A very common statement that one hears down there is "Why, our trees don't winter-kill. We don't have cold severe enough to kill them." But they do. It isn't a question of severity of cold, but suddenness of change. For instance, in southern Georgia one year, we had a rainy period in October; about November 20th there was a hard freeze. A number of orchards which had been fertilized late in the fall were almost wiped out. If it were not due to the fact that the term is too long, and we could say "damage due to sudden temperature change," it would convey the idea exactly. I saw trees injured in the fall of 1914 that didn't die until September of the following year, and I have a number of photographs in my office.
DR. STABLER: I believe, Mr. President, that the stimulation of growth late in the season has a great deal to do with the winter-killing of trees and other plants. I have noticed it in clover and alfalfa, and I have noticed it in peach trees.
THE PRESIDENT: I think Dr. Stabler has stated a very well-known principle, not only of horticulture, but also of agriculture. Last year we questioned Mr. W. C. Reed as to the condition of a certain top-worked, heavily forced, black-walnut we had seen the year before at Vincennes. We were confirmed in our belief that the tree was dead, but that another tree budded at the same time with the same bud-wood and not forced, lived. We had a dry summer that year, a wet fall, twenty degrees below zero at Christmas, dead apple trees. I suspect that Mr. Littlepage has a problem in the balance of tillage and top-working.
DR. STABLER: I think if he visits his neighbor, Professor Waite, he will find out how to manage trees so they won't winter-kill, because he knows how to fix it. (Laughter.)
MR. LITTLEPAGE: I treated the trees just like the pecan. I have never seen it possible yet to over-stimulate a pecan and winter-kill it. I don't say it isn't possible, but I have never seen it.
THE PRESIDENT: I can show you a few.