particularly successful. About ten years ago Professor Chandler set
out about one-half acre of named varieties of pecans, Persian walnuts,
black walnuts, hickories, hazel nuts, chestnuts and Japanese walnuts.
These have received good care, both as to cultivation and fertilization
but to date the only trees which have borne are the Japanese walnuts and
these have not had good crops. Apple trees of the same age in adjacent
land have been bearing commercial crops for a number of years,
especially such varieties as the McIntosh, Wealthy and R. I. Greening.
The climate at Ithaca is apparently rather too rigorous for most of the
nut trees. Persian walnuts, hazel nuts and frequently Japanese walnuts
suffer from winter injury. In the case of the chestnut, blight has
practically killed all of the trees. The pecans are perfectly hardy but
as yet have not borne, probably because our seasons are not sufficiently
long or warm enough to grow this nut to advantage. Hickories have been
very slow to become established and in fact have never made really good
growth. This experience, of course, makes us feel that nut growing is
really not as easy as some enthusiasts would have us believe.

In addition to this variety planting there are four or five acres of
recently cleared woodland in which there are hundreds of hickory
seedlings which can be top-worked. We are aiming also in this area to
establish seedlings of all of the hardy nut trees to use as stocks and
eventually to get a collection of all named varieties of nut trees.
Grafting so far has not been particularly satisfactory due in some cases
to failure of the grafts to set; in other cases to the winter killing of
grafts which have made fairly good growth. Injury by bud moths and wind
storms have also been detrimental factors. Our own experience together
with observations upon the results of nut grafting elsewhere by experts
lead us to believe that grafting of nut trees is a very difficult
undertaking as compared with that of other fruit trees. It involves a
knack which must be acquired by very considerable experience. I realize,
of course, that new facts regarding nut grafting are being discovered
almost daily and in the future we may look for better results.

The attitude of the Department of Pomology at the College with regard to
nut growing is of necessity conservative. First of all, the men in the
department are trained in scientific methods and have a somewhat
critical attitud