
Some Hickory nuts, life size. F—= Fairbanks. S—Stratford. 
one-year tree to sell in October. With the 
Shagbark, we buy the nuts in October, 
plant them in March. In two years we 
transplant the piddling little tree to keep 
it from sending its roots clear to China. It 
takes it about two years to recover from 
transplanting, after which it begins to 
grow. In the sixth or seventh year we can 
graft it. Then the surprise occurs. Some 
of them will grow 2 or 3 feet a year. Some- 
times even more if well fertilized. And if 
you put a grafted Shagbark in your lawn 
you can have a big tree much sooner than 
most persons would expect. 
This tree differs from the Pecan in 
many respects. Not only will it grow in 
Maine, Vermont, upper New York, Michi- 
gan, Minnesota, but it is quite at home on 
good upland soils, as is shown by the way 
it grows in rocky upland woods and pas- 
tures in a dozen states. 
A Good Lawn Tree 
Many people for some unknown reason 
cover their lawns with maples, which an- 
nihilate the grass with their dense foliage 
and multitude of surface roots. The Shag- 
bark, like the Walnut and the Pecan, 
being a deep rooter, lets grass grow up 
close to it. Also its tall cylindrical shape 
is an aid to the grass, and it gives the 
trees a very distinctive and pleasing ap- 
pearance. 
Fertilizing the Shagbark 
Do not let the Shagbark deceive you by 
the fact that it grows naturally on upland 
12 
soils. It likes fertilizer. Its bearing is 
likely to be very greatly influenced by the 
amount of plant food. There have been 
some startling results following the ap- 
plication of an abundance of commercial 
fertilizer to Shagbarks and other nut trees 
of the Hickory family. Therefore, I would 
suggest that you give the tree liberal 
supphes of fertilizer high in phosphorus 
and potash. If the tree is 20 feet high I 
would recommend 5 pounds of a com- 
mercial mixture of 4-12-4 or even 4-12-8, 
and if it is a 30-foot tree, give it 10 
pounds, at least every other year. You are 
likely to be abundantly rewarded. 
Shagbark Varieties. I have several 
varieties of pure Shagbark (see price 
list), but I cannot at this time say how 
one differs from the others. (IV, III, IT, 
west of Lake Huron and favored locations 
east of it.) 
Hybrid Hickories 
“What kind of a Hickory is this?” I 
ask an expert botanist when I get him out 
in my woods. “Well,” he says, slowly and 
thoughtfully, “the nut looks something 
like a Mockernut (Carya alba), but the 
leaf is not exactly a Mockernut leaf, and 
the bark looks like Tightbark Pignut 
(Carya glabra).” Then his friend the 
other botanist says, “But look at the 
number of leaflets and the shape of those 
branches.” The fact is, the tree is probably 
a hybrid—a natural hybrid. Indeed, many 
of the species of our forest trees mix 
rather freely with each other and produce 
