ollen of the shagbark species to pollinate its blossoms. Now these
trees are bearing profusely.

The second batch of grafts from the original Weschcke hickory, which
grew near Fayette, Iowa, was made in 1934. One mature nut from grafts
made that spring was gathered from the ground in the same year, about
October 1, 1934, but it had been partly consumed by a squirrel. From
that year to the present, these grafted trees produced each year and
never failed to mature some edible nuts up to and including this year,
when there is a very large crop (6-1/2 bushels). This, then, is the 15th
consecutive crop of nuts of which I have a record. During two years we
had such early fall frosts that the nuts were a little shriveled and not
fully mature, but still edible. In other years there were some light
crops, but there never has been a crop failure in all this time. The
variation in bearing is also due in part to several late frosts which in
the spring in some years killed back all the foliage and newly expanding
buds. Yet new dormant buds opened, some of which had flowers, and so
carried on the unbroken bearing record.

Last winter (1947-48) produced the most severe damage to exotic species
of fruit and nut trees as well as ornamentals, including evergreens,
ever recorded in this area; yet the grafted Weschcke hickory trees were
so loaded down with nuts that I had to support the load by tying up
branches to keep them off the ground. This tough winter caused almost
every variety of apple tree to be barren, such as Wealthy, Northwestern
Greening, Whitney Crab, Haralson and Malinda. Only two varieties,
Lowland Raspberry and Hibernal, bore fair crops. Last winter killed
outright (to the ground) most of my Thomas black walnuts, some of which
were more than 25 years old, and damaged severely such other varieties
as Ohio, Vandersloot, and Ten Eyck. The winter was responsible also for
the killing of several seedling Chinese chestnuts which had survived ten
years of our winters and yet others of these Chinese chestnuts are
growing again from sprouts near the ground surface. The mulberries
suffered greatly also, but in general the hickories of many varieties
came through this winter, with very little damage, and most of them are
bearing a few nuts. Even the wild hazels suffered differing amounts of
damage and have only partial crops of nuts because of the effects of the
winter.

In conclusion, keep in mind that these experiments and tests