Not so long ago we saw a movie by the title of "Cluny Brown." The
heroine was possessed with a passion for repairing plumbing, but was
continually inhibited by well-meaning relatives who told her that she
"didn't know her place." A scene early in the story shows Cluny on the
floor under a stopped-up kitchen sink explaining her problem to a
sympathetic professor who states a philosophy something like this. "To
be happy, one should not have to be bound by what is appropriate. If it
is customary to throw nuts to the squirrels and you prefer to throw
squirrels to the nuts, it should be all right to throw squirrels to the
nuts."
It is obviously not always advisable to be so unconventional, but it
seems to me that in matters pertaining to one's hobby it should be
permissable to throw "squirrels to the nuts."
A hobby, like a shadow, is necessarily a very personal thing. Without
the person with which it is associated it could not exist. Therefore, I
feel that it is appropriate to present throughout this paper a liberal
use of the pronoun in the first person.
Years ago, as a boy on an Ohio farm, I tried repeatedly, without
success, to graft on small hickory trees along the river bank scions
from one especially good tree that stood out in a cultivated field. Time
that followed was too crowded for further attempts at nut tree
propagation until about fifteen years ago, when, living in Connecticut,
I bought a grafted walnut, a Thomas, and set out to produce more like
it. Before we left Connecticut, I had been able to present grafted
walnut trees to many of my neighbors who had persisted, hitherto, in
calling hickory-nuts "walnuts." They would listen with some show of
interest while I expounded on my enthusiasm for black walnuts, but
sooner or later would inevitably ask, "Do you mean the shagbark kind?"
Last summer we drove back to Connecticut for a brief visit, and, on
calling at the home of one of these friends, we found that the first nut
borne on their Thomas tree had been carefully saved. Forthwith there was
a solemn nut-cracking ceremony, and all present tasted the meat and
pronounced it good. We hope that that tree and many others will thrive
for years to come to add to the bonds of friendship with these neighbors
we have known.
Lately I have arranged my work so that we may once again live in Ohio
not too far from my boyhood home. Last year I tried once again to graft
along the hillside scions from that prized hickory, and this time six
out of seven grafts have grown.
My field of work has been that of a chemist, engaged in industrial
problems related to animal and plant products. Hence, my hobby and my
day's work are productive of mutually helpful ideas. The literature
which I review frequently contains suggestions applicable to the various
phases of tree propagation. Though a few references are quoted in the
bibliography at the end of this paper, these are for illustration only
and comprise a very small number of those which have appeared.
My experiments in nut tree propagation have been reported from time to
time in the yearbooks of the N.N.G.A. and I intend in the remainder of
this paper only to outline problems under a number of general headings
in which I am particularly interested, and give some indication of
procedures which seem worth while investigating.
An important phase of nut growing to which I have given little attention
is the search for new varieties. I find my interest in this aspect
growing as I associate with the group of nut growers in Ohio, who
through prize contests and active personal work are trying to discover
superior nut trees in nature, yet I do not find in this the opportunity
I seek for experimentation unless it may be in the matter of
hybridization.