nut trees at Rockport, Indiana, suggesting that he make some
experimental graftings at my farm. Both Mr. Wilkinson and Mr. Weber
gathered scionwood from all the black walnut, pecan, hiccan and hickory
trees at their disposal, for this trial. There was enough of it to keep
three of us busy for a week grafting it on large trees. Our equipment
was carried on a two-wheeled trailer attached to a Diesel-powered
tractor, and we were saved the trouble of having to carry personally,
scions, packing material, wax pots, knives, pruning shears, tying
material, canvas and ladders into the woods. Mr. Wilkinson remarked, on
starting out, that in the interests of experimental grafting, he had
travelled on foot, on horseback, by mule team and in rowboats, but that
this was his first experience with a tractor.

When he saw the type of grafting with which I had been getting good
results, Mr. Wilkinson was astounded. He declared that using a side-slot
graft in the South resulted in 100% failure, while I had more than 50%
success with it. He was willing to discard his type of grafting for
mine, which was adequate for the work we were doing, but I wanted to
check his grafting performance and urged him to continue with his own
(an adaptation of the bark-slot graft to the end of a cut-off stub). We
both used paper sacks to shade our grafts. Although results proved that
my methods averaged a slightly higher percentage of successful graftings
in this latitude and for the type of work we were doing, his would
nonetheless be superior in working over trees larger than four inches in
diameter and having no lateral branches up to eight feet above ground,
at which height it is most convenient to cut off a large hickory
preparatory to working on it.

In the late fall of that year, we cut scionwood of the season's growth
and inverted large burlap bags stuffed with leaves over the grafts, the