f trees in August would not be safe in
Connecticut because the new young shoots would be killed by September
frosts. That is the reason for August cutting of brush by farmers. The
tender new shoots that are sent out from latent stump buds become
frosted and the entire plant may die.

On account of an illness that had kept me confined to the house most of
the time for some months, I had allowed the spring grafting season to
pass this year. Stored scions of many kinds lay under a heap of leaves
at the rear of my garage. The drying-out process had been intensified by
an employee who made a spring clean-up of the yard and who looked upon
this heap of leaves as something upon which creditable showing for his
work might be made. A month or so later I kicked over the few remaining
broken remnants of scions for no reason in particular. Down near the
ground I observed that two hybrid chestnut scions which had been
trampled into the ground had retained some moisture. Each one had sent
out a pale canary-colored shoot of the sort with which we are painfully
familiar. The shoot on one scion was about an inch and a third in length
with well-formed unfolding sickly yellow leaves. The other scion had a
shoot of the same kind but only about one-third of an inch in length and
with yellow leaves barely out of bud-bursting form. It occurred to me
that my old method of waxing the entire scion, leaves and all in this
case, might be done as an experiment in order to see how long these
greatly started shoots would hold up if desiccation was prevented and
always with the possibility of a surprise.

Some years ago I had waxed some hazel scions from the West that had
burst their buds and they all grew but the test was by no means so
severe as it was with these yellow chestnut upstarts. The rule of
discarding scions that are not wholly dormant was about to be rudely
broken; waxing changed the whole situation. A miser does not scrutinize
his treasure more acutely than we horticulturists do when getting out
scions that have been stored during the winter and the voice of Demeter
is calling us to the side of our own wards. How sadly a million
nurserymen have thrown away a billion started scions of valuable kinds.
My two chestnut scions had gone far beyond the hopeless stage but now
perhaps I could be a doctor to them. If my two canary birds could be
made to sing then would I also sing.

They were dipped in a dish of melted parafin wax for an instant