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they are transplanted to the nursery to grow on for budding or grafting 

 stocks. Transplanting helps in making for better roots on the trees as 

 well as spacing the trees the proper distance to grow up to "finished" 

 nursery trees. Trenches for lining out the young seedling stocks can 

 be opened uj) with a single shovel or a one horse cultivator, by removing 

 all but the center standards and shovels and running two or more times 

 to the row to get proper depth. We rarely cut back these small stocks 

 when transplanting and they v.rc niore easily cultivated and cared for if 

 the tops, or at least part of tlie tops, are left on. The plants must be 

 given more room in what we might call the permanent nursery, and the 

 usual practice is to set them in rows 3^ to h feet wide and the plants 10 

 or 12 inches apart in the row. On rich land, the Japanese walnuts 

 make good budding or grafting stocks the first year after transplanting, 

 while the black walnut takes two years and the pecan and bitternut a 

 year longer usually. 



Size or Age of Stocks for Grafting or Budding 

 It does not ))ay to try to graft small stocks. It is more difficult to 

 get buds or grafts to take on small stocks, and, if they do take, more 

 time is required to make trees large enough to handle satisfactorily. 



In nursery practice, tot graft to the best advantage, the stocks of 

 black walnut or other thick bark trees should caliper at least 2 inch and 

 up. Pecan and bitternut can be somewhat smaller. Of course most of 

 the stocks at the ages mentioned will run larger than this as a rule, but 

 if there are very many stocks below these sizes it may pay to let the 

 block stand another year before grafting. 



The beginner is quite likely to make the mistake of selecting out and 

 grafting a few of the largest stocks in a block of seedling stocks the 

 next year after transplanting, instead of waiting two years. As usually 

 handled, this does not work out well in practice for the reason that the 

 stocks not grafted over-top the young grafts and they run up spindling 

 to reach the light and do not make good trees. This can be overcome 

 very largely by cutting all stocks not grafted back to near the ground 

 line. These will promptly throw out new shoots and one of these can 

 be left for budding the same season or for grafting the following 

 spring. These new shoots, growing up with the grafts, will not do them 

 very much harm. Large stocks should not be cut back below where they 

 are to be grafted, but small seedlings, when cut off near the ground, 



