57 



where they are safely out of reach of danger by pasturing animals. 

 It is now an attainable task to graft these trees in place. It is easy 

 to give them abundant supplies of manure, if available, or of lime, 

 nitrate of soda, potash, or other chemicals thrown upon the surface of 

 the ground near them, and of the raw bone dug in near their roots. 

 I wish to emphasize the fact that a row of trees down the fence inter- 

 feres with no farm machinery. 



It is perhaps equally feasible to graft suckers of walnuts, hick- 

 ories, and, in many places, of pecans, that grow up in the scrub of 

 cut-over land. I think that such land can be changed from a wild 

 thing to a grafted forest or open stand of grafted trees, either by 

 letting it become a pasture or by letting it continue in the nature of a 

 woods or thjicket. If the latter course is followed, about the only care 

 that is needed is to keep out the fire and cut down rival growth at 

 some convenient season every few years. It would be a hard place to 

 walk through but I suspect that the results would closely resemble 

 tillage. As the grafted trees get larger and larger they will increas- 

 ingly shade the suppressed growth beside them and take greater and 

 greater possession of the light, air and root space. 



I have not yet tackled the task of converting stump land without 

 pasturing it but I have had some very satisfactory experience with a 

 few scattered black walnuts grafted along fence rows and in rough 

 pastures that can not be plowed. I have been particularly interested 

 in a top-worked hickory, a sucker that grew up among many others 

 in a pasture in which sheep, goats, cows, mules, by turns, or in com- 

 mon, have been doing their darnedest for about twenty years. This 

 tree, a pignut, was grafted at a height of about six feet to Fairbanks 

 hickory which is supposed to be a hybrid between bitternut and shag- 

 bark. The parent tree is native in Iowa and trees grafted from it 

 are living in Vermont. 



This particular tree has born fair crops of nuts for two or three 

 years out of the last four years. I think the tree has been grafted 

 about 10 years. It now measures 10 inches in girth at the graft. It 

 has a spread of 10 feet. The top is about 8 feet in height above the 

 igraft. 



The tree stands in one of the most unpromising places in three 



