quently, I bought several hundred
dollars worth of trees from him. More than that, we became friends. I
visited him at his nurseries in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and he again
demonstrated his interest and generosity by giving me both horticultural
information and the kindest hospitality. My friendship with him was but
one of many that I have formed while traveling and corresponding in the
interests of nut culture. True and lasting friends such men make, too,
with no circumstances of selfish import to taint the pleasure of the
relationship.

Since I wanted to have many black walnut trees some day, I decided to
plant ten bushels of black walnuts in rows. I thought I could later
graft these myself and save expense. The theory was all right but when I
came to practice it, I found I had not taken squirrels into
consideration. These bushy-tailed rats dug up one complete bed which
contained two bushels of nuts and reburied them in haphazard places
around the farm. When the nuts started to sprout, they came up in the
fields, in the gardens, and on the lawn--everywhere except where I had
intended them to be. I later was grateful to those squirrels, though,
because, through their redistributing these nuts I learned a great deal
about the effect of soil on black walnut trees, even discovering that
what I thought to be suitable was not. The trees which the squirrels
planted for me are now large and lend themselves to experimental
grafting. On them I have proved, and am still proving, new varieties of
the English walnut.

The other eight bushels had been planted near a roadside and close to
some farm buildings. The constant human activity thereabouts probably
made the squirrels less bold, for although they carried off at least a
bushel of walnuts, about two thousand seedlings grew. I had planted
these too close together and as the trees developed they became so
crowded that many died. The remaining seedlings supplied me with
root-stocks for experimental work which proved very valuable.

I have always suspected the squirrels of having been responsible for the
fact that my first attempt to grow hickory seedlings was unsuccessful. I
planted a quart of these nuts and not one plant came up. No doubt the
squirrels dug them up as soon as I planted them and probably they
enjoyed the flavor as much as I always have.

In 1924 I ordered one hundred small beechnut trees, _Fagus ferruginea_,
from the Sturgeon Bay Nurseries at Sturgeon Bay, Wi