and may not speak correctly. I have made crosses back and forth between
shagbark, bitternut, mocker-nut, pignut, and pecan. In the crosses I
made, using pecans, pollen was received from the South and put upon the
others. The number of crosses that are fertile I cannot state as yet,
because I have not had experience enough in protecting these nuts, and
many of the hybrid nuts were lost. Squirrels and mice destroyed the
labor of three of my men and myself during one season. I have secured
fertile hybrids between the pecan and the bitternut and between the
pecan and the shagbark. If I remember correctly, those are the only
fertile hybrids I have between hickories at the present time. In regard
to crossing hickories and walnuts, I have crossed back and forth several
of the walnuts, our black walnut, our butternut, the Siebold walnut,
with the pecan, and with the bitternut, and have fertile hybrids. These
are open bud hickories, and the open bud hickories seem to cross
pollenize freely with the walnuts back and forth, while the scale bud
hickories do not accept pollen readily from the walnuts. I would rather
perhaps not make a report to this effect for publication at the present
time, for two reasons. In the first place, I am speaking from memory; in
the second place, rats, mice, squirrels, small boys, visitors, and high
winds have made such inroads upon my specimens, and upon my work, that
it is not quite time to report. I am merely speaking offhand in a
general way, stating that the hickories, open bud and scale bud, both
seem to cross rather freely back and forth. Open bud hickories and the
walnuts seem to cross rather freely back and forth, while the walnuts
and the scale bud hickories apparently do not cross so readily back and
forth.
Professor Craig: In growing your hickories from root cuttings, have you
had any trouble from excessive sprouting?
President Morris: Anywhere from one to eight sprouts will start from
adventitious buds at the circle near the ground, and then I break all
these off but one, letting that one grow.
Mr. Wilcox (Pennsylvania): How do you prepare your stocks for budding
and grafting, in pots?
President Morris: I have tried practically every method that has ever
been described, and the only successful method that I have now has been
topworking vigorous sprouts of one year's growth. That is, I would cut
off the tops of the trees now. Next spring those tops send out very
vigorous sprouts. I bud those early in August or the latter part of
July, or else in the following spring, sometimes, we graft them; and in
grafting, it is quite important to cut longitudinally at one side of the
stock, and go clear to the cambium layer. That gives the flexible slice
on one side, and adapts itself to the tying.
Mr. Wilcox: Have you prepared any stocks in pots at all?
President Morris: Yes. I personally have to leave these to others. I
tell my men to do it, but it is rather new work for them, and I give
them so much to do that things are apt to be neglected; and just a
moment of neglect at the wrong time will wipe out a whole year's work. I
have not cared very much at the present time for root grafting in pots.
I have lost a great proportion of the grafts, and it does not at the
present time seem desirable; but I believe if that is done in hot houses
with the ground warmed from the bottom, it is very apt to succeed. Give
them plenty of time for granulating. They granulate very, very slowly.
Mr. Wilcox: What kind of pots do you use?
President Morris: Some Professor Sargent showed me, long, made for the
purpose.
Mr. Collins (Pennsylvania): You spoke of the hairy hickory. What hickory
is that?
President Morris: _Hicoria villosa_, that you find from Carolina
southward.
Mr. Littlepage: You spoke of the Stuart as being the most hardy pecan in
the latitude of New York. I presume you meant of the southern pecans?
President Morris: It seems to be one of the hardiest anyway. Even
Virginia forms don't stand it through the winter as well as the Stuart.
Mine are not fruiting as yet.
Mr. Littlepage: What varieties have you there?
President Morris: Appomattox and Mantura are northern ones I have.
Mr. Littlepage: Have you none of the Indiana varieties?
President Morris: Yes, I have the Indiana varieties on northern stocks,
but those have only gone through one winter. They went through all
right. I would say that the Stuart is quite as hardy as those.
Mr. Littlepage: I have observed the Stuart in Indiana. A friend of mine
has a small orchard of several varieties of pecans. I notice some places
where the Stuart has lived six or seven years, and then some
particularly hard freeze has frozen it back. I have a letter from Mr.
Jones in Louisiana, in which he says they had a recent freeze, and
every variety of pecan he had there had suffered, except the Stuart. I
don't recall whether he mentioned the Moneymaker in a previous letter or
not, but he did mention the Russell and some other varieties.
President Morris: We have a number of pecan trees about New York that
have been grown on private estates. Pecans have been planted in
Connecticut and Massachusetts. You run across seedling trees here and
there, and a good many of them are perfectly hardy. They are very apt to
be infertile. The staminate flowers are apt to be destroyed because they
mature so late, and they may not carry any nuts. Pollination is
imperfect as a rule, and nuts may not fill.
Mr. Reed (Washington, D. C.): But trees of Stuart are in bearing?
President Morris: I don't know about bearing. Three years they have
stood a temperature of twenty below zero, so that is a pretty good test.
Mr. Reed: You haven't seen any nuts yet?
President Morris: No, I haven't seen any nuts; but they mature their
wood, and if they mature their wood, they are likely to mature staminate
and pistillate flowers.
Mr. Littlepage: While it is true they may mature staminate and
pistillate blossoms, the question arises whether or not the growing
season is going to be long enough at the end to mature the nuts. I
notice in going through wild groves in Indiana, once in a while you have
a tree which never matures any nuts, though it has bountiful crops. The
frost gets them.
Professor Craig: There is evidently a lack of summer heat to ripen
fruit. Before we get quite away from this subject, I would like to ask
Mr. Roper if he has noticed any striking differences in the hardiness of
Stuart and other northern forms of the pecan in his particular locality.
Does Stuart maintain its reputation for hardiness in his locality? We
are interested in that question from the northern standpoint.
Mr. Roper (Virginia): I think it does, but that is discussed in a paper
which I shall read some time here in the meeting. Both the Stuart and
Moneymaker have done better with us than any other of the southern
varieties when they are budded on hardy stocks. The grafted trees do not
do well with us.
President Morris: Professor Lake, will you speak on any of these
points?
Professor Lake: I am learning much and prefer to continue a learner. I
shouldn't know anything about this crossing, except in the case of the
_Juglans regia_ and the oaks of California. That is one case that was
not mentioned. We have a remarkable hybrid between the native oaks and
the Persian walnut. It is remarkable in many ways. It has foliage that
is perhaps half way between the oak and the walnut, and the nut on the
surface looks like a small walnut, and on the inside it is between a
walnut and an acorn. I had an opportunity to sample the flesh, but it is
not edible yet. They are interested in the work very much, especially at
Chico and the Southern California Station.
President Morris: It is said to be a cross between the live oak and the
walnut. It seems absolutely impossible, but I have seen the nuts, and a
photograph of the tree.
Mr. Reed: We haven't devoted a great deal of attention to the
hybridization of nuts in our Department work. There is one thing that
occurred to me, as I sat here, merely of passing interest. A gentleman
in Mississippi sent a specimen of foliage, together with berries, from
what he said was a hybrid between the pecan and the China berry; and he
had the evidence, because the parent pecan tree stood right there, and
the China berry was the other parent tree! He wanted world wide
attention called to that. They were taken to the botanist, and he
recognized them as one of the ordinary soap berries. There was a similar
case this fall. A gentleman in Texas exhibited some nuts at the State
Fair at Dallas that he said were a hybrid between the mocker-nut, the
common hickory there in Texas, and the pecan. He said that the parent
trees stood near one another and that the pecan blossomed some years
about the same time that the hickory did, and in those years the hickory
nut was long, and in other years it was short. Somebody sent one of the
nuts to Mr. Taylor, Assistant Chief of the Bureau of Plant Industry. He
sent the nut on to me, and I looked it up. I struck Texas on one of
those cold wave days, and drove five miles out and back in a Texas
livery rig, and found an ordinary hickory that bore nuts just a little
different from others. That is one way the Department is called upon to
ferret these things out.
Mr. Littlepage: I would like to ask Mr. Reed what information he has as
to the success of pecans bearing when grafted or budded on other
varieties of hickory? I say that because I know from traveling around
through the country that there is a widespread impression that it is
possible to have very extensive pecan orchards throughout the North by
topworking the wild hickory. I have had some little experience along
that line, but I don't know what the facts are; and Mr. Reed has made an
extensive trip recently for the Department of Agriculture, collecting
data in reference to the pecan.
Mr. Reed: The present situation, so far as we have been able to gather
the information, is just this. The pecan has been grafted on a good many
species of hickory, all the way from Virginia south to Florida, and west
to Texas; but rarely ever can we find an instance in which they have
produced satisfactorily after they have come to a bearing stage. We find
that they unite readily ordinarily, and grow rapidly; but the pecan
eventually proves to be a more rapid grower than the hickory, and when
it catches up and is the same diameter, then the pecan growth is slower,
and while they bear a little the first few years, later on they are not
productive. I don't wish to say that is final, but it has been the
experience so far. You will find most enthusiastic advocates of pecan on
hickory where it hasn't been tried for any length of time. The men who
try it find it unites readily and makes this quick growth, and think the
question is solved. But aside from a few instances in Texas, I don't
find very encouraging reports. It may be due largely to the fact that
the right varieties of pecan haven't been used. We know that in the
early history of pecan culture the Rome and Centennial and some others
that are light bearers were used; and then the pecan on hickory has been
looked at as so much saved, and they haven't been given much attention.
It is still very much a matter of doubt, but is not in a very favorable
light at present.
Professor Craig: I would like to ask Mr. Reed if he has looked over Mr.
Ramsey's work recently at Austin, Texas.
Mr. Reed: I was at Mr. Ramsey's last year, and I don't recall that that
matter came up at all.
Professor Craig: Didn't you see his plantation of top worked hickories?
Mr. Reed: I didn't know he had topworked hickories. He has topworked
pecans. Professor Kyle of the Station in Texas has recently issued a
bulletin on that very thing, and he cites a number of cases in which he
concludes that there will be a favorable outcome; but for some reason,
in the instances which he cites, the trees haven't borne very much. They
attribute it this season in one instance to the fact that they had a
storm at pollinating time, and last year some other accident happened
that prevented them from maturing after a quantity of nuts had set.
Mr. Littlepage: I mention this at this time because I want to get Mr.
Reed's testimony in the record, because I think that every prospective
nut grower must go through this stage. A year ago I undertook on my farm
in Indiana to bud the pecan into other varieties of hickory--I have a
great many wild hickories growing all over my farm,--shagbark,
shellbark, and different varieties of those even. So I went to work and
budded perhaps one hundred of those trees, and for a while it seemed
that there was going to be a great degree of success. I budded them all
upon the limbs where the bark was thinner, and tied the bud in with
waxed cloth very tightly; and by absorption the majority of the buds
lived a week or ten days. After that, there was perhaps a third of them
alive. For the next two weeks, we could find an occasional bud that
remained green, and then the number became so very small that I gave up
the idea that any would live. But this spring I found a few of these had
started to grow, but I had tied them so very tightly that in some
instances where there had been a growth of an inch or two, the bud part
had been cut in two. Then I undertook it on a much smaller scale. I cut
back eight or ten small hickory trees three to four inches in diameter,
let them throw up water sprouts, and budded into these. The bud wood I
used stuck very tight, and I examined the buds in November, and there
were quite a number alive of the Greenriver and Huntington varieties of
pecan. Whether they will grow finally remains to be seen.
(A discussion then occurred as to holding the afternoon session and
it was decided to continue the business during the afternoon,
instead of visiting the Campus.)
President Morris: I would like to comment on one point made by Mr.
Littlepage. He has given us perhaps the reason why pecans die back when
grafted upon other stocks. Mr. Reed, that is an extremely important
point. He has shown that the pecan grows so much more rapidly than other
hickories that when it has arrived at a proportion to be supported by
the root of the other hickory, it then ceases bearing because all the
energy is required for maintaining this new pecan top that tries to grow
faster than the hickory, if that is my understanding of this point.
May we not graft freely back and forth hickories of kinds which have
about the same rate of growth, and may we not graft other kinds of
hickories upon pecan stock, for we don't care how much nourishment is
given to a fine young shagbark?
Mr. Littlepage: That is a fine point.
President Morris: I am very glad Mr. Reed brought up that point. It is
going to save thousands of dollars if it is a fact recognized in time,
because many would go to putting pecans upon other hickories. We may
learn that certain kinds of hickories can be grafted to advantage upon
other stock, however.
Mr. Reed: There is another point right there I would like to have your
views on, and that is, the smaller the hickory is at the time the pecan
is grafted on it, the greater will be the influence of the pecan on the
hickory.
President Morris: It can drag the stock along perhaps. It has been
proved, I think, that a graft has a certain influence upon the stock,
and in some cases can drag it along willy nilly to a certain extent. The
root and the top get to balance each other fairly well if the root is
very small at the time the graft is put on. Most of the trees that have
been topworked to pecan have been various kinds of large hickories.
Perhaps if you were to take a shagbark hickory one to two years of age
and graft it, the pecan top would dominate or control that root, no
matter whether it wanted to grow or not.
Mr. Reed: The claim is sometimes made that if the pecan is grafted on
other hickory young enough, it will transform the hickory completely. It
will make a sufficient root system to feed the pecan as well as the
pecan root would. But I have never seen that demonstrated.
President Morris: That is speculative. It is a very valuable point, one
of the sort of points that would naturally be brought out at a meeting
of this kind.
Mr. Reed: Have you seen that with other fruits, Professor Craig?
Professor Craig: Yes. Each variety of apple produces its own kind of
roots without reference to the seedling stock. That is to say the scion
overrules the root in budding or grafting upon one or two year old
seedlings.
President Morris: A parallel that comes to mind now is the grafting of
Burbank's Royal walnut upon ordinary walnut stock. When that was done,
his Royal walnut was said to drag the other walnut along.
Professor Craig: I think it is a very valuable suggestion. I am not sure
I will go as far as the President has gone; but I think it is
exceedingly suggestive, and worthy of careful consideration.
Mr. Rush (Pennsylvania): I find the same experience in some instances,
that the graft outgrows the stocks. That is a peculiar instance of the
work of improper unions. Eventually the stock pushes up and forms a
perfect union in growth, with the Persian walnut. This is particularly
applicable to pecan and hickory. I suppose Mr. Reed will bear me out in
that, with regard to English walnut and black walnut.
Mr. Reed: Oh, yes.
President Morris: You occasionally see a variety of apple grafted on
another in which the graft part gives the tree a sort of slipshod
appearance. How about the bearing in that kind of a tree?
Professor Craig: They usually bear heavily where the food supply is
restricted.
Mr. Reed: That would make our pecans bear more heavily on hickory stock
than on their own.
Professor Craig: As a matter of theory, they ought to. The bearing
ought to be increased, because it is a system of girdling, or brings
about the same effect,--in other words it restricts the return flow of
the elaborated food. The food is checked at the point of union. Another
parallel is in the case of _Prunus domestica_, the European plum, when
worked on _Prunus Americana_, the American plum. In that case, the top
always outgrows the stock, and in ten years it presents a very curious
appearance. It presents the appearance of a very top-heavy head on a
very spindling stem. The bearing is usually encouraged, but the fruit is
usually small. The amount of fruit measured by numbers is increased, but
the amount of fruit measured by the size of individual specimens is
decreased.
Mr. Collins: Isn't the size of the fruit increased in the case of
apples?
Professor Craig: By topworking, usually, it is, but that doesn't
contemplate such an extreme case as that. It means when the union is
reasonably uniform, when there is a reasonable affinity between stock
and scion. But in extreme cases we get the opposite result. Reproduction
is encouraged, but size of fruit is checked.
President Morris: I would like to hear from Mr. Rush or Mr. Pomeroy in
connection with the hickory.
Mr. Pomeroy: I haven't ever tried any experiments with the hickory.
President Morris: We will discuss further some of the points that have
been suggested in this paper, because it seems to me we are along a good
line of cleavage, and this line of cleavage may dispose of some
questions that we haven't discussed. One question brought up was if the
bitter, astringent qualities are likely to be recessive among hybrids in
the trees which have bitter nuts.
Mr. Littlepage: I made a trip through Missouri and Arkansas a year ago,
and while there, took occasion to go into the forests, and investigate
to some extent the Arkansas and Missouri hickory and pecan. Among other
things, I found two hybrids, one of the pecan and one of the pignut, one
of which was bitter and inedible, the other a fairly good nut. I have
both of them with me here today. One of them was very astringent and
bitter, the other had taken more the quality of the pecan as to meat,
and was a fairly good substitute. I don't know what the reason for it
is, that one is fit to eat, and the other isn't, when they are both
hybrids between the pignut and the pecan.
Doctor Deming: How did you know they were hybrids, by the appearance?
Mr. Littlepage: Yes, the appearance is unmistakable. The pignut
characteristics are very prominent, also the pecan characteristics.
President Morris: Have the members anything to say about the
Stringfellow method of transplanting hickories?
Doctor Deming: I have had very little experience in transplanting
hickories, but I set out two Hales hickories I got from Meehan, and they
are both living, although they have made little growth in some three
years. Can you tell us what stocks the Hales hickory is grafted upon?
Mr. Brown (Pennsylvania): Upon the bitternut. All there are have been
upon the bitternut from the start.
Doctor Deming: Mr. Littlepage, what do you think of the future of
topworking our seedling hickories in the North with improved varieties
of hickory or pecan,--the commercial future?
Mr. Littlepage: It is largely speculative. I suppose it is the province
of every nut enthusiast to have an opinion about these things. In fact,
I find it is encouraging to talk to the fellow who has an opinion. My
notion is that there is a great future for topworking the various
varieties of the hickory in the North to the desirable forms of the
hickory, that is, of the hickory other than the _Hicoria pecan_. On my
farm I expect next year to devote some time to topworking the various
hickories I have to the desirable varieties of the shagbark. I think
that can be done throughout the whole country. The shagbark seems to be
indigenous to such extensive latitudes, that it seems to me there are
great possibilities along that line. I observe that around here we find
many of those trees. I have some very beautiful shagbarks that came from
Canada. My opinion is that it will be successful. I think the reason the
pecan has not proved very satisfactory upon the other species of hickory
is that most of those hickories have a close grained wood, and that the
distribution of available food depends largely upon the amount of sap.
The _Hicoria pecan_ is a much coarser grained wood. The flow of the sap
upward is facilitated much more than the flow of the sap upward through
the hickory stock of other varieties. I believe that is the reason the
theoretical rule would probably not work in this case, simply because
the distribution of sap cannot take place fast enough through the tight,
close grained stock of other varieties of hickory. Otherwise, I don't
see why the rule would not obtain, as with fruits. The experiences Mr.
Reed gives, I think, are generally recognized by those who have
experimented with them to any extent. I noticed in visiting Mr. Roper's
nursery he had one very beautiful specimen of the pecan grafted on a
hickory. That was the Stuart, was it not?
Mr. Roper: The Moneymaker. It had made a growth of four or five feet in
two years.
Mr. Littlepage: Do you know the variety of hickory that it was topworked
to?
Mr. Roper: Just our common hickory, I suppose the pignut.
Mr. Littlepage: It made beautiful growth from the wood standpoint.
Mr. Roper: Mr. Reed's point was that it would do that till it got by the
period of good nutrition from the root. Professor Craig says the
elaboration of food from the pecan top more than overcomes the
deficiency.
Professor Lake: I would like to question Mr. Littlepage's physiological
ground for the lack of proper fusion of liquids between the pecan and
the other hickories. I believe it is not authenticated that the water
supplies from the earth would not distil as fast in the close grained
hickories as in the more open grained pecan. At least, the very close
grained, firm woods of the tropics transmit a tremendous amount of
water, much in excess of many of our fine grained woods of the North.
And it seems to me I wouldn't like to have this Association go on record
as vouching for this explanation exactly. It seems to me there are
better explanations. Lack of fusion is not due to the amount of water
that is carried up, but rather to the fact that the root system of the
hickory does not develop fast enough to collect water to transmit.
Mr. Littlepage: I am very glad to hear Professor Lake's statements. My
suggestions were given only as a possible theory that occurred to me,
and I don't vouch for their accuracy. There must be some explanation to
controvert the general rule which Professor Craig has given us.