60 NUT GROWING 



in the north it is desirable to place straw or other 

 shading material about the little tree after cutting it 

 back severely and protecting cut surfaces with 

 melted paraffin to prevent drying out. This will 

 have a tendency to avert August starting of buds 

 which would send out tender shoots to be winter 

 killed. A tree is safe if carried over to the second 

 year whenever buds remain dormant in midsummer. 

 The so-called laying over of transplanted trees to 

 the second year or late starting of buds seems to 

 be remedied in the locality of my own grounds by 

 severe cutting back of both root and top at the time 

 of transplanting. This method should be tried out 

 elsewhere to a greater extent than has been custom- 

 ary. The method has not appealed to horticul- 

 turists generally because it is directly opposed* to 

 their instinctive approval of a large and beautiful 

 root system of the sort pictured in nursery cata- 

 logues. The Stringfellow method has been particu- 

 larly successful with me when transplanting pecans 

 (and incidentally persimmons). Nurserymen have 

 usually taken pains to send on young trees with full 

 top and long roots. If, for example, they had 

 trimmed back five-foot pecans to stubs about eight- 

 een inches in length consisting of top and root about 

 equally balanced they would have avoided much 

 trouble in packing. There would have been less 

 danger of bruising in transit and my only loss would 

 have been that of the tops which I usually cut off 

 promptly and employ for grafting into* other stocks. 

 The fresh-cut end of stock is then covered with 



