26 25 47 30 2
Rush x Italian Red 11 25 39 27 0

* * * * *

Discussion after Mr. Slate's paper--

_MacDaniels: "Of the 1999 seedlings tested at Geneva, 52 are being
carried on for further observations. Prof. Slate is doing a fine work."_

_J. R. Smith: "I want to express my appreciation of the work Prof. Slate
is doing. To care for 1999 seedlings and keep the performance records is
a big job and just the kind of thing on which progress depends."_

Nut News from Wisconsin

CARL WESCHCKE

This year at River Falls, Wisconsin, which is only 35 miles southeast of
St. Paul, Minnesota, the season started off with much rain and a delayed
cold spring. All the grafting had to be postponed from two to four weeks
later than normal. The stored scion wood suffered some because of this
long storage period, and some of it was quite dry when taken out. This
was particularly true of the Weschcke butternut and these scions looked
so dry that I was tempted to throw them all away, but instead I gave
them to two young horticulture students to practice with. None of them
grew, however, so we had a 100% failure on butternut grafting. About a
dozen years ago I had much success grafting butternut on black walnuts
and was unimpressed, therefore I did not make any notes as to the
process I used. This was a mistake for apparently I have lost the art.
The last five years has probably produced only about five or six plants
successfully grafted on black walnut. Hickories respond much better and
I usually get about 50% successful grafts on my native butternut stocks.

Although the insect pests, such as the butternut curculio, were delayed
in their attacks, they eventually caught up and destroyed most of the
big butternut crop and did their usual damage to heartnut and Persian
walnut growth. I noticed in the American Fruit Grower that plum curculio
was controlled in the peach orchards through the use of hexaethyl
tetraphosphate. If this chemical poison controls plum curculio, it ought
to control any of the curculio family, such as the hazel curculio,
chestnut curculio and butternut curculio. The butternut and hazel
curculio appear to me to be the same insect. I am not troubled with the
chestnut curculio yet, but if this chemical gives control over the
curculio insect family we will certainly be able to raise large crops of
all of the nuts