ree trees,
none of which have borne but all indicate that they are true heartnuts
from the shape of the leaves and color of the bark and general
formation. In order to hasten their bearing, scions have been taken from
these small trees and will be grafted on large black walnut stocks to
bring them into fruitfulness much earlier than if they were left to
their own slow growth. This system of testing out seedlings long before
they have reached a size sufficient to bear on their own roots is
applicable to all of the species of nut trees and is one way that the
plant breeder can hurry up his testing for varieties after making
crosses and obtaining young plants.

[Illustration: _Natural size Heartnut. Photo 10/26/38 by C. Weschcke.
Gellatly variety._]

Beechnut

The beechnut, Fagus ferruginea, belonging to the oak family, is one of
the giants of the forest, growing to great size and age. Even very old
beech trees have smooth bark and this, in earlier and more rustic days,
was much used for the romantic carving of lovers' names, as scars still
visible on such ancient trees testify. The wood itself is dense and
hard, even more so than hard maple, and is considered good lumber.
Beechnut is one of the few nut trees with a more shallow and ramified
root system as contrasted with that of most, which, as in the oak,
walnut and hickory, is a tap root system. This fact suggests that in
those localities where beeches grow wild, grafts made on such trees, and
transplanted, would survive and grow well.

Perhaps one of the reasons why very little propagation is done with
beeches is that no outstanding variety has ever been discovered.
Although the nut shell is thin and the meat sweet and oily, the kernel
is so small that one must crack dozens of them to get a satisfying
sample of their flavor. This, of course, prevents their having any
commercial value as a nut. There is also the fact that the beechnut is
the slowest growing of all the common nut trees, requiring from twenty
to thirty years to come into bearing as a seedling. Of course this could
be shortened, just as it is in propagating hickories and pecans, by
making grafts on root systems which are ten or more years old, as
explained in the chapter on heartnuts. However, I know of no nursery in
which beechnuts are propagated in this way.

My attempts to grow beechnut trees in Wisconsin have met with little
success. About the year 1922, I obtained 150 trees from the Sturgeon B