The Chairman: How about using scion wood more than one year old?
Mr. Jones: We prefer two or three year old wood for the scion. We have coming now, 3,000 walnut scions from California and they are all to be two and three years old. I have put in rows of 100 with large two year scions and you could count 100 and not find one dead among them and some of the scions were almost as big as my wrist. It's a job to cut them. You see that scion, being large, has enough vitality to hold it until it can make a union.
A Member: Do you use the same method on the Persian walnut?
Mr. Jones: Yes sir; we got a little stingy one year and cut these all to one bud and hardly got any out of them. You've got to have wood enough to hold the scions dormant; of course there may be one or more buds on the scion.
The Chairman: And got to have food enough in them.
Mr. Jones: Yes sir. Col. Sober grafts chestnuts that way, but I have never been able to graft pecans and walnuts with very short scions.
The Chairman: I have caught chestnuts with one bud, but most of the nut trees want more food and you've got to have a lot in the scion.
Prof. Smith: Have you used that with pecans in the North?
Mr. Jones: Yes sir, this will be our method of propagation.
After Mr. Jones had given further illustrations of the process of grafting, the convention adjourned.
SOME PERSIAN WALNUT OBSERVATIONS, EXPERIMENTS AND RESULTS FOR 1912
The Arlington work for 1912 in the propagation of the Persian walnut consisted in top-grafting three and four year old nursery stock by several methods, as ordinary cleft, side cleft, bark cleft, prong, whip and modified forms of these. For wrapping we tried bicycle tape, waxed cord and cloth, with wax and plasticine for covering.
The work was done during the latter part of April and first part of May. The stocks averaged from 3/4 to 1-1/4 inches diameter, and were cut off from 16 to 30 inches above the surface of the ground. In a few cases bark grafting by modified whip form was performed upon the branches at a height of about 4 feet.
Later in the season from June 12th to August 25th buds were placed by varying methods. In the earlier instances the buds were taken from left-over grafting stock. Of the scion wood received last year all the wood from Eastern growers was frost bitten and wholly failed to take with one or two exceptions.