ar trunk to show curly grain is related to the fact that the top
of the tree at Ithaca was of another variety than the original Lamb.
Possibly the foliage of the original variety producing the curly
character is necessary to produce the curly grain. An argument against
this interpretation is that the tree at Beltsville, Maryland, is not
topworked.

It would be valuable at the present time to survey all the trees of the
Lamb walnut, which are growing in various parts of the country, to see
under what circumstances they may be showing the curly characteristic of
the original tree. Dr. M. Y. Pillow of the Forest Products Laboratory at
Madison, Wisconsin, in an unpublished report, has pointed out that it is
possible to determine the curly nature of the grain by shaving off the
outer bark, exposing the inner bark just outside of the cambium.
Inasmuch as the same cambium cells form fiber cells both on the inside
to make the wood and towards the outside to make the bark, the direction
and nature of the fibers in the bark are a direct indication of the
direction of the fibers underneath the cambium in the wood.

The appearance of the normal straight grained wood and bark and wood and
bark of a curly grained tree are shown in figures 4 and 5. Shaving off
the outer bark in this manner will not harm the trees, if it is done
carefully so it would be possible to make this survey without injury to
the trees. Examining a number of trees of the Lamb walnut in this way
and finding that some were curly, might give evidence as to the
conditions under which the Lamb walnut will produce curly grain.

Dr. Pillow of the Forest Products Laboratory, kindly furnished me with
his file on curly and birdseye grained wood. In this file is a very
interesting group of manuscripts and letters including a report from Mr.
Willard G. Bixby reporting a trip to New Hampshire to study the
occurrence of birdseye maple and also his early experiments with the
Lamb walnut. The Lamb walnut trees at that time were too young to give
any indication of curly grain. Other letters of interest on the subject
were from Mr. J. F. Wilkinson, A. S. Colby and C. A. Reed. These letters
mention the desirability of propagating figured walnut but aside from
indicating that trees of the Lamb had been propagated there was no
indication that curliness had developed. The first definite indication
that curliness would develop in a grafted tree was reported by Mr.
Wilkinson (Ref. 7)