212 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA EXPERIMENT STATION. 



pronounced. Again, it is impossible to give to trees planted out in 

 the field in this way the care which could be given them if planted in 

 the nursery, and their growth at best is much slower than it would be 

 under the latter conditions. When the best trees finally reach graft- 

 ing size, there are bound to be many others in the orchard of all sizes 

 and ages which struggle along over three or four years before they get 

 large enough for grafting. After grafting commences the same irreg- 

 ularity continues. In some trees the grafts do not take the first year, 

 consequently these must be grafted over again the second and often even 

 the third year. Thus the whole tendency of this method in practice is to 

 produce a most irregular, uneven orchard, and at the same time requir- 

 ing several more years for its development than is necessary under 

 other methods. More than all this, the absolute fallacy of the notion 

 that there is any disadvantage in cutting the taproot or in trans- 

 planting the walnut tree has been abundantly established, so that the 

 only object of using this method loses completely its value. 



PLANTING BLACK WALNUT SEEDLINGS IN ORCHARD FORM. 



This method represents a decided improvement over the last one. 

 It consists in growing black walnuts of the desired type in the nur- 

 sery, then selecting from these as good and uniform a lot as possible 

 and planting them out, ordinarily when one year old, in permanent 

 orchard form, with the idea of grafting them later on. By doing this 

 several of the objections to the last method are overcome. It is pos- 

 sible to get a very uniform stand of black walnuts, provided the stock 

 is of uniform nature, and by proper selection of seedlings, trees can 

 be obtained which will come along fairly uniformly and be ready for 

 grafting at about the same time. The advantages claimed for this 

 method are mainly two: first, that by allowing the black walnut trees 

 to reach considerable size they may be grafted at a height of about five 

 feet, thus obtaining a black walnut rather than an English walnut 

 trunk, which, with its rough bark, will be more immune to sunburn. 

 The second advantage is that in planting an orchard to be grown 

 without irrigation, grafts upon a well established black walnut tree will 

 be much better nourished and receive a better supply of moisture during 

 the first year or two, when a transplanted tree would be using up its 

 energies in developing new. roots, and thus the high-grafted tree will 

 obtain a much better start. Both of these ideas have considerable 

 merit, especially in planting where irrigation is not to be practiced. 

 Under such conditions a vigorous black walnut seedling, especially 

 if dug with a good root and cut back in the top, as described on pages 

 245 and 248, may usually be established without much difficulty by a 

 little hand-watering during the first season. If the soil is such that 

 non-irrigated orcharding is at all feasible, the tree will then go on to 



