68 A TREATISE ON NUT CULTURE. 



Chestnut can easily enough be budded or grafted in California, if we only 

 know how to do it; and I assert that the climate either of Nevada or Sonoma 

 counties has nothing whatever to do with the success or failure in budding and 

 grafting the Chestnut, as one is certainly as dry as the other. I know posi- 

 tively that the summers in this county are terribly dry and hot. Now, for the 

 benefit of the readers of the Rural Press, I will hereby describe how to bud 

 and graft the Chestnut, giving them at the same time some general ideas on its 

 culture and planting and the harvesting of its nuts, and figures showing how 

 important has become in other countries the culture of that nut tree. 



GRAFTING THE CHESTNUT. --If asked at what time of the year I graft the 

 Chestnut, I would answer : At any time from March ist to October ist ; for I 

 have grafted, (common cleft grafting) Chestnuts with good success in the Spring, 

 also in midsummer (July) and in the Fall (from September 2oth to October ist. ) 

 For Summer grafting I used with equal success scions kept in sand in the 

 cellar, or wood of the year's growth right from the tree. The reason why I 

 practice Fall grafting not only on Chestnuts, but also on Apples, Pears, 

 Prunes, etc., and, as I tried for the first time this Fall, on Walnuts is because 

 I have more time and leisure to do it in the Fall than in the Spring, at which 

 time work of all kinds crowds up all around on the place. Grafting done in the 

 Fall keeps dormant, the same as budding, the grafts putting forth in the Spring 

 at the same time as buds do. But the grafts must be taken from that part of 

 the scions where the wood is perfectly round and not angular-like that is, 

 from the base of scions. I graft also one-year-old trees as large as a pencil, at 

 the table, in February, planting them out in the Spring, succeeding forty to 

 fifty per cent. ; a larger number if the stock is of a larger size. 



Chestnut grafting is as successful on large as on small trees. If a limb is 

 too big it is better, as with the Walnut, to use sap grafting, which consists in 

 making two clefts, one across the .stub at each side of the center, right in sap 

 wood, instead of making a single cleft through the center. In inserting the 

 graft one must make allowance for the difference in thickness of bark of both 

 stub and graft, and insert the graft so that the wood of the graft will unite with 

 that of the stub. 



BUDDING THE CHESTNUT. Budding can as successfully be performed on 

 the Chestnut as grafting ; it may be done as early in the Summer as after July 

 4th, and the buds be made to grow to quite a length before the Fall ; dormant 

 budding, however, is preferable. It is done in August and September ; but a 

 condition sine qua non of success with the Chestnut, as with the Walnut, both 

 stock and scion must be fully in sap ; it is to say that Chestnut budding should 

 rather be done late in Summer or early in the Fall. The same as for grafting, 

 the wood of the scions from where the buds are taken should be perfectly round. 

 The stock or shoot to be budded should be of the size of the fore and medium 



