414 Propagating Walnuts. 
be made of the hardy French varieties, which will be described 
farther on. Recently considerable planting has been done in the 
coast and interior valleys and foot-hills of central California upon 
the quite fully demonstrated success of these varieties. It is, 
however, very desirable to secure satisfactory depth and reten- 
tiveness, without excess of water, in the soil. The walnut abno.s 
drouth as well as standing water. 
Soils for the Walnut—The walnut makes most rapid growth 
upon a deep, rich, moist, loamy soil, and shows its appreciation 
of good things of the earth as do other fruit trees, and yet it at- 
tains satisfactory size and bearing in less favorable situations. 
Thriving trees can be found in the clays and decomposed granite 
soils of the foot-hiils, as well as in the valley silts and loams. 
Adequate moisture must, however, be had, and the walnut can 
not be commended for dry, neglected places. 
Propagation—The walnut tree grows readily from nuts 
treated as described in Chapter VIII. In the main the use of 
seedlings prevails, and the nut is usually considered to come true 
from seed. Excellent results have, however, been obtained by 
using the California black walnut as a stock for the English wal- 
nut, and in that case budding or grafting must be resorted to. 
Many instances of the success of the English walnut on our 
native stock might be cited, but the most notable tree known 
to the writer is to be seen on the grounds of John R. Wolfskill, 
on Putah Creek, in Solano County. He put in a bud in 1875 
and the tree has reached immense size and large product. Since 
then many large native black walnuts have been top-grafted 
with English walnut with notable success. 
In working on the native California seedling stocks, Mr. 
Clowes, of Stockton, buds by the common method, removing the 
wood from the inside of the plate of bark, as advised for the 
orange. Twig buds as uscd with the olive (Chapter X XIX) are 
also successful, and ring budding (see page 325) works well on 
shoots of a year’s growth, which have at least attained the thick- 
ness of the middle finger. Mr. Gillet advises that the buds 
should be set at the base of these shoots where the wood is per- 
fectly round. The bandage should pass above and below the 
bud so that the bark under it may be pressed down close upon 
the stock, and this is more surely gained by shaving off the base 
of the leaf stem, below the bud. about to the point where it 
would separate when the leaf naturally falls off. 
Grafting into the black walnut seedling root can also be 
well done by a triangular cut into the edge of the root stump, as 
described for grafting into grape-vine stumps. In the case of 
the walnut, close binding with a wax band is desirable. 
Large walnut trees can be worked over either by budding or 
grafting. If by budding, the large limbs are cut back in the 
