he top of the stock. The growth is then tied to the
stick with soft cord. If growths are not tied this way, most of them are
broken off by the wind. After the grafts are set, I cover with a paper
milk bottle, or rather, container, and cut four small holes in it for
ventilation. It sheds the rain well. I use a small tack on two sides.
The containers usually stay there until removed when the graft starts.
This method works much better than paper bags, as they are easily
water-soaked and the wind blows them against the scion, which is easily
loosened and therefore fails to start.

I am also well pleased with the results I have had with heartnuts on
black walnuts. I consider them the most rapid-growing of any of the nut
trees. I have had grafts bear a few nuts the next year after being set.
I now have seven or eight varieties, of which I consider Fodermaier,
Aloka, Rival, Mitchell, and Wright as the most promising, along with
Goettler. Squirrels seem to prefer heartnuts to all other sorts. I have
eliminated this trouble by tacking a length or two of stove pipe around
the trees.

Last summer my attention was called to a tree about 30 miles from my
home, which bore a very large crop of heartnuts. The man that owned the
tree called them filberts. The tree is about 40 feet tall with a spread
of 40 or 50 feet and is 18 inches in diameter. It is perhaps 20 to 25
years old and bears from three to four bushels a year, I am told. I have
heard that the tree grew from a seed brought over from Germany. I have
named the tree Goettler, in honor of the man bringing it to my
attention. The nut seems to resemble the Wright and is one of the best
cracking nuts I have found. I received permission to get scion wood from
the tree and have a few grafts growing well.

Hickories are, of course, a native of this section as is pecan, which
grows wild on the Mississippi River bottoms about as far north as the
mouth of the Maquoketa River. The pecan grafts take off nicely on
hickory stocks but the graft seems to outgrow the stock. I have found,
however, that hican, being half hickory and half pecan, works much
better on a hickory stock. My pecan grafts which seem the most promising
are Major, Indiana and Greenriver, and of the hican grafts the
Burlington and Wapello.

Chestnuts seem to do very well here, as well as filberts and native
hazels. Of the chestnut varieties I have growing I prefer the Nanking,
Kuling and Meiling. Most of my Persian waln