GRAFTING 87 



gaged in top- working. Such injury may be avoided 

 if we wear rubber-soled shoes or leather soles 

 equipped with rubber "air-peds." The latter are valu- 

 able for preventing slipping or loss of foothold when 

 we are doing "up-tree" work of any sort. 



If for any reason grafting must be done at a time 

 when sap is running very freely there are two ways 

 for gaining advantage. We may graft after sunset 

 when sap pressure falls rapidly, or at this same time 

 we may go over the day's work and touch up leaking 

 points with more paraffin while they are temporarily 

 dry. In the morning sap will fail to break through 

 the hard paraffin. 



Before taking up the method of grafting in detail 

 a word must be said about other methods of propa- 

 gating choice varieties of nut trees. Layering of 

 branches by bending fhem to the ground and fasten- 

 ing them there until roots have appeared from buried 

 buds or from cut spaces in the bark has been a 

 favorite method with hazel growers for a very long 

 time. This plan was followed in my own work with 

 hazels at first. Grafting by the new method is now 

 so successful that layering has been abandoned. 

 Grafting avoids a good deal of labor and it allows 

 us to save for a hazel tree the energy which would 

 otherwise be expended upon shoots for layering 

 purposes. 



Experiments with the growing of nut trees by 

 root or branch cuttings were under way when the 

 easier method of grafting was developed and the 

 experiments were then discontinued. It was found 



