Some Shagbark nuts, life size. 
If you are in doubtful territory be- 
cause of cool summers, omit the Green- 
river variety because the Busseron and 
Indiana ripen earlier. 
Many nurseries will sell you seedling 
Pecan trees at a very cheap price. If 
you buy them with any expectation of 
nuts, the chances are 999 to 1 that you 
will be greatly disappointed. You can 
also buy very cheap grafted Pecan 
trees from the South. They will make 
nice shade, but their nuts can be 
depended upon not to ripen north of 
the Cotton Belt, where they originated. 
I moved a hundred bare root, 10-15 
foot pecan trees. I cut off the tops and 
cut the branches back to short stubs. 
Ninety-eight lived and made a few 
inches of growth. The next year they 
made twice as much growth—about a 
foot. 
The Shagbark 
Tree for the Northern Range 
The Shagbark is the safe, sure tree 
for the man of the North. The tree 
grows wild over almost all of north- 
eastern United States. 
Tens of thousands of farm boys have 
delighted to pick up Shagbarks all the 
way from Maine to Iowa, from Michi- 
gan to western North Carolina, and 
most of these boys have noticed that 
the nuts from some trees yield their 
kernels much more easily than others. 
In fact, the wild nut trees differ almost 
as much as wild apple trees, with here 
and there one that might be called a 
tree genius because its nuts are so much 
better than the rest. 
12 
W—Weschke 
G—Grainger. 
Search by the Northern Nut Growers 
Association 
This organization of persons inter- 
ested in nut trees in the North (see my 
price list) has been offering prizes and 
searching for the best wild nut trees in 
America for the last 35 years. As a re- 
sult of this search many Shagbarks of 
unusual quality have been found. At 
least 60 varieties are now under test. 
Some of them yield many of their ker- 
nels in complete halves, so that the 
time has come for the Shagbark to be- 
come a lawn tree of double merit. 
The Growth of the Shagbark Tree 
This tree, like the Pecan, also is not 
a nurseryman’s delight. We can buy an 
apple root in December, graft it in Feb- 
ruary, plant it out in April, and have a 
one-year tree to sell in October. With 
the Shagbark, we buy the nuts in Oc- 
tober, plant them in March. For about 
3 years you think you have a sit-down 
strike on hand. Finally it begins to 
grow. In the fifth or sixth year you 
can graft. If successful the graft grows 
three or four inches. Then it reforms 
and begins to grow. Some of them will 
grow 2 or 3 feet a year. Sometimes 
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, 
Michigan, Minnesota, but it is quite at 
home on good upland soils, as is shown 
by the way it grows in rocky upland 
woods and pastures in a dozen states. 
