will
be nowhere nearly proportionate to a farmer's loss of pasturage. And
even in my 8 x 8 x 22-foot planting of seedlings, though no grazing was
permitted while the trees were young, now the older trees are large and
strong enough in the good soil to take care of themselves. Some lower
branches are rubbed off but they should be off anyhow. Also, thank
heaven, the weeds are at last kept down by grazing, the grass is
utilized and, most important of all, the hazard of grass fires is
entirely wiped out. I know of a neighbor's planting destroyed in this
way and I shall always fear fire. I should not permit grazing in a
general purpose woods lot where young growth is constantly coming on.

Failure three: I have failed completely to interest my tenant in my
project. Each mowing or clean-up job is just a chore to him. I can't
blame him. Why should I expect anything else? With a World War on hand,
and with his son in the army, and with two farms to care for, the
immediate bread-and-butter jobs come first and my mowing suffers.
However, the wonderful trees somehow continue to grow in spite of weeds
and wars, perhaps a bit more slowly than they otherwise might, but I am
in no hurry.

The last war casualty was my original plan to make a further orchard
planting of seedlings in loco, ready to be top-worked to the wood of
some outstanding find among the selected seedlings. It has not been
done--period.

I think I do have one or two rather outstanding nuts among the
seedlings, but this leads up to another casualty which must be faced by
all of us--a temporary one, fortunately, namely, crop failures due to
the weather. The larger trees began to bear at age seven. Then, three
years ago we had a drouth. For the two years since then, we have had
summer in March and winter in May. The catkins were mostly killed and
the pistillate bloom was delayed in growth upon the new wood until most
of it came too late for even such pollination as was so sparingly
available. Thus we have had no generally good nut producing season for
three years in our part of Ohio. As a result, my truly outstanding nut
is still in hiding, and I am waiting for a good season to bring it out.

Another disappointment with me has been the Carpathians. They partially
winter-kill each winter. Their trunks still live and send up shoots. I
let them stand, hoping for an eventual hardening of the wood. I regard
them not as failures but as not yet proven.

For purely experi