HICKORY NUTS. 183 



ing by such operations as root pruning and frequent 

 transplanting. 



Budding and Grafting. I have never known of 

 an instance of successful budding of the hickory, at least 

 in the ordinary way during the summer months. What 

 is called "annular budding" in early spring with buds 

 of the previous season, is said to have been successfully 

 practiced with the pecan at the South, but this mode of 

 propagation is more of the nature of grafting than of 

 what is usually understood as budding. But I have 

 been unable to obtain any statistics in regard to the pro- 

 portion of buds that any propagator or experimenter has 

 made live by this or other modes of propagation. Col. 

 Stuart says, in "The Pecan," p. 45, "There is a method 

 known as ' annular budding,' which proves quite suc- 

 cessful." He then proceeds to describe the operation, 

 as given in all works on the propagation of trees and 

 plants during the past hundred years or more, but not a 

 word to indicate what he considers a "success," 

 whether it be once or fifty times in a hundred, or if he 

 ever succeeded in making an annular bud unite to the 

 stock ; I am more inclined to think that he never did/ 

 than otherwise. 



In Bulletin No. 105, "Nut Culture for North Car- 

 olina," issued from the N. C. State Experiment Station, 

 1894, Mr. W. A. Taylor, Assistant Pomologist U. S. 

 Department of Agriculture, in referring to budding and 

 grafting of these trees, says: "These latter operations 

 are less successful with the pecan than most fruit trees, 

 though they are by no means impossible to accomplish. 

 On seedlings one or two years old annular budding in 

 early summer succeeds best." But here again we are 

 left in doubt in regard to what the writer considers "a 

 success." Then, again, the line between the "possible" 

 and "impossible," in horticultural matters, is a rather 

 difficult one to determine, and Mr. Tavlor fails to cite a 



