e planted
in a heavy quack grass sod and some were lost, but those surviving show
good compatibility between the top and root.

In the intervening years I have made but slight changes in the rootstock
material used in my own nursery. I do not approve of the performance of
our butternut varieties on the Japanese walnut _root_, as it results in
a weak and dwarfed tree. The use of butternut rootstocks is also
unsatisfactory, for they tend to produce trees of low vitality that in a
few years fall victim to blight and then perish. I tried our Michigan
black walnut seedlings as a rootstock and found that they are very much
better rootstock material. The growth at the union is about equal. Top
growth is good, and the butternut tops bear early and heavily, with no
signs of blight during the ten years I have had them under test.

After years of test I have decided to use the northern pecan seedlings
as rootstocks for my shagbarks, pecans, and hicans because they are a
fast growing stock tree. They accept the grafts readily, and make good
unions more quickly than the bitternut stocks I have tried. Mr.
Wilkinson, from whom I obtain my seed, has never failed to send me seed
with good viability, just about every seed germinating. The northern
pecan seedlings have shown no winter injury here in Southern Michigan
during the 20 years I have watched them growing.

An example of the superiority of the black walnut over the Persian
walnut as a rootstock is a seedling of the variety Wiltz Mayette growing
near a Broadview grafted on black walnut. Both trees are the same age,
but the Broadview on black walnut is just about twice the size of its
own-rooted neighbor.

Hudson Valley Experience with Nut Tree Understocks

Gilbert L. Smith, _Millerton, N. Y._

This report is not based on any planned or well conducted experiments,
but is based simply on our observations of results of our grafting work
over the years since 1934.

Our first work was with hickories, so I will start with them.

Our first year's grafting was done in a plot of practically pure pignut
stocks. This was the seven leaflet pignut, which I believe to be _Carya
glabra_. I have never been sure of the identification of the two species
of pignuts. We secured a fairly good percentage of living grafts, which
grew well the first summer. The next spring all of the grafts failed to
leaf out and later were found to be dead. A few grafts which were put on
bitternut stock