noxious insects are enemies of nut-tree seedlings as well as garden vegetables. The seedling hickories should be treated as advised for chestnuts; that is, dug up when one or, at the latest, two years old, and their central or taproot shortened to at least one-half their original length, and then reset in nursery rows, and at a distance of twelve to fifteen inches apart in the row. If grown in ordinary upland, the transplanted seedlings will make a better growth if heavily mulched than under the usual system of clean cultivation, and it is usually less expensive; besides, by keeping the surface of the soil cool and moist, we encourage and assist the production of fibrous lateral roots, which, as a rule, are none too abundant on seedling hickories, no matter under what conditions or system of cultivation they are raised.

When the seedlings have grown in the nursery rows two or three years, they will probably be large enough for planting where they are to remain permanently; but if, for any reason, they are not disposed of, then they should be again transplanted,—the larger roots shortened,—and re-set in good rich soil. The object of transplanting is to insure the production of small fibrous roots, and a frequent renewal of the same, close to the main stem or stock, as long as the trees remain in the nursery, whether this be two or twenty years. This is somewhat of an expensive operation, but the value of stock thus handled is enhanced far more than the cost of such transplanting, and purchasers are, or at least should be, willing to pay a fair price for such trees.

It is the natural habit of the hickories, as well as many other kinds of deciduous trees, to produce in their earlier stages of growth rather large, deeply penetrating, naked roots, with few small fibers, and in this condition they are not so readily and successfully transplanted as the kinds possessing a more ramified root system. This,

perhaps, has misled many persons to believe that certain kinds of trees, like the hickories, could not be moved at all, or at least not with any assurance of being made to live. This idea has become so prevalent among inexperienced cultivators, and, I regret to add, often reiterated by theorists, that it has discouraged many who otherwise would have raised and planted nut trees in preference to other kinds.

Admitting that it is the general habit of most kinds of forest trees to produce deeply penetrating taproots, when grown from seed, it proves nothing more than that these parts may be of some importance to the plants while they are young, and under natural conditions, yet they are not absolutely necessary, and, at most, are only temporary organs, like the tails of tadpoles, always disappearing with maturity.

Any one at all observing, and having had an opportunity of examining limited or extended areas of forest trees thrown over by hurricanes, must have noticed that no tree of any considerable size and age possessed a taproot, but had been for years kept in its upright position by lateral brace-roots, and through these it had also obtained nutriment from the surface soil. Some of my correspondents in the South have expressed their surprise at not finding any trace of the original central roots on old pecan trees, when blown over by severe wind storms. But it is the same everywhere with forest trees and where the soil is naturally loose and moist: the principal or supporting roots spread out widely and remain near the surface, and the central roots or taproots disappear much earlier than in dry soils.

In multiplying trees under artificial conditions, we remove the taproots, not only for convenience in transplanting, but also to hasten and increase the production of surface lateral roots, and more than this, we lessen the years of luxuriant sterility, securing earlier fruit

ing by such operations as root pruning and frequent transplanting.

Budding and Grafting.-I have never known of an instance of successful budding of the hickory, at least in the ordinary way during the summer months. What is called "annular budding" in early spring with buds of the previous season, is said to have been successfully practiced with the pecan at the South, but this mode of propagation is more of the nature of grafting than of what is usually understood as budding. But I have been unable to obtain any statistics in regard to the proportion of buds that any propagator or experimenter has made live by this or other modes of propagation. Col. Stuart says, in "The Pecan," p. 45, "There is a method known as 'annular budding,' which proves quite successful." He then proceeds to describe the operation, as given in all works on the propagation of trees and plants during the past hundred years or more, but not a word to indicate what he considers a "success, whether it be once or fifty times in a hundred, or if he ever succeeded in making an annular bud unite to the stock; I am more inclined to think that he never did, than otherwise.

In Bulletin No. 105, "Nut Culture for North Carolina," issued from the N. C. State Experiment Station, 1894, Mr. W. A. Taylor, Assistant Pomologist U. S. Department of Agriculture, in referring to budding and grafting of these trees, says: "These latter operations are less successful with the pecan than most fruit trees, though they are by no means impossible to accomplish. On seedlings one or two years old annular budding in early summer succeeds best." But here again we are left in doubt in regard to what the writer considers " a success." Then, again, the line between the "possible" and "impossible," in horticultural matters, is a rather difficult one to determine, and Mr. Taylor fails to cite a

Bingle instance in which either annular or any other form of either budding or grafting had been successfully practiced. The Bulletins issued from the Division of Pomology of the Department of Agriculture, give us no information whatever on this subject of propagation of the hickories, further than to repeat the old formulas of annular, splice and cleft grafting; but as to results they have always been provokingly silent.

Having been repeatedly assured, by men who presumed to know, that the pecan tree was successfully propagated in the South by grafting, and many thousands annually raised in this way, it seems strange that such plants are so rarely offered by nurserymen. Seedlings of choice varieties are, of course, abundant enough, but a man might, with as much propriety, offer seedling Bartlett pears or Baldwin apples, as pecan trees, expecting to perpetuate varieties. In corresponding with Mr. P. J. Berckmans, of the Fruitland Nurseries of Augusta, Ga., whose experience and acquaintance with the fruits of the South are, without doubt, in advance of any other horticulturist of the past or even the present generation, in reply to my request for information on grafting pecans, he writes: "For the past five or six years we have grafted various varieties of the pecan nuts. I do not know of any other nurseryman South who offers grafted trees. I presume the reason of this is, the great difficulty in having the grafts take, as we seldom have more than fifteen to twenty-five per cent grow. We usually crown graft in February, using one-year-old seedlings grown in nursery rows. Owing to the small percentage of grafts which grow, grafted trees must, necessarily, be quite expensive, and for this reason there are so few attempts made in this method of propagation." Mr. Berckmans makes no reference to annular bud ding of the pecan, so strongly and frequently recommended by the several writers already quoted, although

I am certain that he is as familiar with this mode of propagation as any one else, and would have practiced it had he found it in any way superior to crown grafting. From all that I have been able to learn through a rather extended correspondence, in regard to the propagation of the pecan nut tree in the South, I conclude that they are occasionally and sparingly grafted, but with such indifferent results that they are not at all numerous in either orchards or nurseries.

From certain remarks of Col. Stuart, in his essay on "Pecan Culture," I infer that he has sold grafted trees, for he says: "It costs no more to care for the grove of choice trees than of poor ones; then, again, the grafted or budded ones come into profitable bearing three years earlier than seedlings. Here is a case in point: Last November (1892) we paid, in cash, two hundred and forty-eight dollars for the nuts which grew upon one tree, the crop of one year. The tree is twenty inches through at its base, and forty-five feet high; such a size tree would grow in twenty or twenty-five years. Now small nuts from the same size tree will sell for not more than fifteen to twenty dollars. Another tree only ten years old bore thirteen and a half dollars worth. These choice nuts are such as we grow seedlings from; we sell a great many more seedlings than we do grafted or budded trees, simply because they are so much cheaper, and people in general do not realize that such a vast difference exists between the profits of seedling and grafted or budded trees; but such is the case, and such it will always remain for aught we can see." Soon after I published the description of the Hales' Paper-shell hickory in 1870, requests for cions were received from nurserymen and many amateur horticulturists, who were anxious to try their skill in grafting this excellent variety. Mr. Hales generously responded, and sent cions to a large number of correspondents in various parts of the