It was not until December of that year, 1919, that the twenty-eight
trees were finally planted. Although the ground was already somewhat
frozen and the trees poorly planted as a result, most of them started to
grow in the spring. They would probably be living now if I had not been
too ambitious to convert them from seedlings into grafted varieties such
as the Ohio, Thomas and Stabler, which I had learned of during a
winter's study of available nut-culture lore. I obtained scionwood from
J. F. Jones, part of which I put on these abused trees and the remainder
of which I grafted on butternut trees. At that time, I must admit, I was
much more interested in trying the actual work of grafting than I was in
developing or even conceiving a methodical plan to be worked out over a
period of years.

In order to facilitate my grafting work that spring, I pitched a tent in
the woods and lived there for a week at a time, doing my own cooking and
roughing it generally. Cows were being pastured in this part of the
woods and they were very interested in my activities. If I were absent
for a long time during the day, on my return I would find that
noticeable damage had been done to my tent and food supplies by these
curious cows. While preparing some scionwood inside the tent one day, I
heard a cow approaching and picked up a heavy hickory club which I had
for protection at night, intending to rush out and give the animal a
proper lesson in minding its own business. The cow approached the tent
from the side opposite the door and pushed solidly against the canvas
with its nose and head. This so aggravated me that I jumped over to that
part of the tent and gave the cow a hard whack over the nose with my
hickory stick. It jumped away fast for such a big animal. This seemed to
end all curiosity on the part of these cows and I was allowed to carry
on my work in peace.