A TREATISE ON NUT CUI/TURE. 95 



Buddinpr and The ^ ecan ma y be budded or grafted upon any of 



Grafting tlie Hickories. The modes having proven the most 



successful in the Southern States are the annular or 



ring-budding, root-grafting and cleft-grafting at the collar, as previously 

 described for the various processes. The grafting should be done early in the 

 Spring, just as the buds begin to swell. For annular budding the operation 

 should be deferred until July or August. 



PROPAGATING HICKORIES. 



A New Jersey subscriber wrote to the editor of Garden and Forest as fol- 

 lows: " How shall I go to work to propagate in quantity different varieties of 

 the Hickory for example, some which bear remarkably large and thin-shelled 

 nuts? I have been told that it is next to impossible to graft them." The 

 editor made the following reply: 



We have referred this inquiry to Mr. Jackson Dawson, who says that 

 although he has never tried to graft a Hickory out of doors, and it is true that 

 these trees are somewhat difficult subjects, nevertheless he does not hesitate to 

 say that with proper stock and precaution they can be as readily propagated 

 under glass as most of the so-called difficult plants. He has experimented with 

 most of the species and has succeeded with all he has tried. This success 

 with several species and varieties of Hickory has been gained without any 

 special preparation of the stock, and, in fact, most of the time he has gone to 

 the woods and dug up the stock after he had received the scions. Of course, 

 this made the work still more uncertain, and yet in the worst cases he has saved 

 twenty-five or thirty per cent, of the grafts. 



" My method," writes Mr. Dawson, " has been to side-graft, using a scion 

 with part of the second year's wood attached, binding it firmly and covering it 

 with damp sphagnum until the union has been made. The best time I have 

 found for the operation, under glass, has been during February, and the plants 

 have been kept under glass until midsummer and wintered the first year in a 

 cold frame. In all genera I find certain species which may be called free 

 stocks that is, stocks which take grafts more readily than others. Thus, 

 nearly all the oaks will graft readily on Quercus Rober ; the birches will graft 

 more easily on Betula alba than on others ; so of the Hickories, observation 

 has led me to believe that the best stock is the bitter nut, hicoria minima. 

 This species grows twice as rapidly as the common Shag-bark Hickory, and 

 while young the cambium is quite soft. I should advise any one who wishes 

 to propagate Hickories on a large scale to grow stock of this species in boxes 

 not more than four inches deep. In this way all the roots can be saved and 

 there will be no extreme tap root, and when shaken out of the boxes the plants 

 are easily established in pots and ready for grafting. If taken up in the ordi- 

 7 



