study to determine what
varieties will stand on pecans, what will stand on bitter hickories, or
what will stand on regular ovata stock. I think that the nurseryman's
wisest way is to use stocks of the same species as the scion and then he
is on the safe side. Because the bitter hickory grows faster, the
nurseryman may find it advantageous to grow the bitter hickory stock in
preference to the other two.

MR. O'ROURKE: The bitter stock makes a hickory big enough to graft in
two or three years.

MR. GERARDI: In two or three, and four or five for the shagbark.
Shagbark or shellbark varieties on bitternut may grow for three or four
years and then die.

The pecan does well on the bitter hickory and the bitter hickory on the
pecan, but I have no reason to grow any bitter hickory because I don't
like the nut. I think it's a waste of time to fool with it that way.

As far as the hybrid pecans are concerned, the pecan root is certainly
the right stock to use on all hybrids. They grow very satisfactorily and
bear well.

MR. WHITFORD: I have Gerardi and McAllister hybrids growing on pecan,
and the Downing overgrows the pecan.

MR. O'ROURKE: To summarize some of this information that we have
gathered this morning on root stocks, it seems that different clones
behave differently on the same stock. That is true, we know, with other
plants, such as apple. Instead of saying that shagbark is not compatible
with pecan, perhaps we should say that the Davis or the Wilcox variety
of shagbark is not compatible with a certain type of pecan. It's going
to take years of effort to find out the truth of the matter.

MR. WARD: Sometimes you will find that a two-year-old scion, if you can
get a dormant bud coming, is better than the matured wood from last
year. I'd just like to get an opinion from some of the growers what they
use for topworking stocks for grafting.

MR. FERGUSON: I think one thing quite important is to get scion wood
that has a good layer of wood around the pith, whether one-year wood or
two-year wood. At the base of the year's growth it will have a lot more
wood in it. At the tip the wood around the pith is thin.

MR. O'ROURKE: Some years ago Dr. MacDaniels stated that a good scion may
be made with the tip of the scion in the one-year wood and the base of
the scion in the two-year wood.

Mr. Bernath at Poughkeepsie, New York, has done some bench grafting of
hickory. Why other people have not done so, I do not know, and