kories in forest
growth put their energies into the formation of wood chiefly, and in the
struggle for food and light devote very little energy to fruiting.

The best method for cultivation of hickories has been worked out only
with the pecan up to the present time. With this species, it has been
determined that clean cultivation with plenty of fertilization gives
best results, as with apples. It is probable that Stringfellow's sod
culture method will come next in order, and will perhaps be most
generally used by nut orchardists, because it is less expensive and
requires less labor. The sod culture method includes the idea of cutting
all grass and weeds beneath the trees, in order to take away
competition, allowing these vegetable substances to decompose beneath
the trees and furnish food. There is no objection to adding artificial
fertilizer, or a still greater amount of vegetable matter.

The enemies of the hickories are not many in the forest, where the
balance of nature is maintained, but when man disturbs the balance of
nature by planting hickories in large numbers in orchard form certain
enemies increase, and must be met by our resources. Fungous and
bacterial enemies are beginning to menace some varieties of the pecan in
the South, and both in the North and in the South certain insect enemies
are becoming important in relation to all valuable hickories.

The bark boring beetle (Scolytus) has been reported as destructive to
hickories in some sections, the trees dying as a result of depredations
of the larvae of this beetle.

I find a large borer at work on some of my hickories, but have not as
yet determined its species. It may be the painted hickory borer
(Cylene), or the locust borer. It makes a hole as large as a small lead
pencil, directly into the trunk or limbs, and excavates long tunnels
into the heart wood. The painted hickory borer is supposed to occur
chiefly on dead and dying hickories, but the borer of which I speak is
found in the vigorous young hickories in the vicinity of my locusts,
which are riddled with locust borers.

In some localities involucre borers make tunnels between the nut and the
involucre, interfering with the development of the kernel.

The hickory twig girdler (Oncideres) is abundant in some localities, but
not as yet very destructive.

Hickory nut weevils destroy many nuts in some localities, and their
colonies increase about individual trees markedly. In such cases, it is