NUT CULTURE PROPAGATION. 11 



root growth has upon the longevity of a tree unaffected by fruit bearing; and whether 

 the modified root growth, sometimes noticed in transplanted trees, is due to trans- 

 plantation or to cultivation and increased food supply, and to what extent it affects 

 the fruitfulness of the tree. 



If the nursery system of propagation is determined upon, it may in the case of 

 some species enable the planter to secure trees of considerable size at planting time. 

 But he will need to give some attention from year to year to the pruning of the taproot, 

 ,or the trees at replanting time will be deficient in fibrous surface roots and possess only 

 one, or at most a very few, deep-running roots with but few lateral branches. The 

 practice of pinching the tip of the radicle when removing the nut from the germinating 

 box to the nursery row, is claimed by some to aid materially in the production of sur- 

 face roots, but it will not do to rely wholly upon this practice for success. It should be 

 followed by the cutting of the taproot at the end of the first season's growth. To 

 effect this have a careful man on each side of the nursery row push a long sharp spade 

 into the earth under the tree so that the points of the spades will meet at such an 

 angle beneath it as will save the most surface roots and sever the taproot. A very 

 sharp thin-bladed tree digger might be used in some soils by careful workmen, but 

 the roots must not be slivered, or "broomed," in cutting. 



PROPAGATION. 



Unless the trees are to be budded or grafted no nuts should be planted that have 

 not been selected for snperibrity in size, flavor, or thinness of shell. They may be 

 planted in the fall as soon as possible after they are ripe, but are safer if placed in 

 sprouting beds or boxes and kept till early spring. 



Plant in boxes of soil and cover with a mulch of leaves; the depth and moisture 

 to be patterned as closely as possible after Nature's method in the forest. The object 

 in using the box is to make easy the keeping of a record, and to prevent mice and 

 moles from disturbing the nuts after they have sprouted in the spring. These boxes 

 of embedded nuts should be settled in the earth to within two inches of their tops in 

 some protected spot where pigs, squirrels, or fowls can not get at them. A liberal 

 quantity of ashes should be mixed with the soil in the box to prevent damage from 

 ants, for where ants have the run of a sprouting nut bed they play havoc with the 

 kernels as soon as the shells have opened enough for them to enter. The surface of 

 the soil in the box should be level with that of the ground outside. In the spring 

 these nuts, when burst by the growing germ, are to be transplanted either to the 

 nursery row or to the orchard site. 



Where a large quantity of seed is to be handled, particularly in the case of the 

 almond, stratification is resorted to, as practiced by nurserymen in propagating the 

 peach. This consists in mixing the nuts in damp sawdust or sand either in a pit dug 

 in well-drained soil or in boxes or bins built for the purpose in cellars. Here they are 

 left till spring. Care is taken that the mass is uniformly moist, and an occasional 

 mixing is advisable to keep it so. The object is to have the nuts gradually absorb 

 sufficient moisture to insure the bursting of the shell by the swelling kernel. This 

 usually occurs during the warm weather of spring; and the germinating seeds, which 

 are easily freed from the sawdust or sand by using a sieve made of coarse wire netting, 

 commonly go direct from the stratification beds to the location that has been prepared 

 for their planting either in the nursery or the orchard. 



Nuts that have become dry may, within reasonable limits, be quickened in germi- 

 nation by pouring warm (not boiling) water over them and leaving a few hours before 

 planting. 



Another method sometimes followed with success is thus described by the late 

 D. B. Wier: "It is generally thought that nuts thoroughly dried will not grow. This 

 is especially true of the American chestnut. Many years ago I experimented largely 



