eved to have
come, and arranged to go out there with him by bob sleigh. A rough ride
of six or seven miles brought us to the farm and we began our quest.
Once there, Mr. Bailey had a more definite idea of where to look for the
tree from which these particular nuts came than he had had before and we
had not been at our task for more than an hour before it was located.
There were still quite a few nuts on the ground beneath it, which
identified it accurately. It was a large shagbark whose first living
branch was fully sixteen feet off the ground and, since we had no ladder
with us, I had to shin up the tree to cut off some of the smaller
branches. This shagbark, true to its name, had rough bark which tore not
only my clothes but some of the skin on my legs as well and whereas the
climbing up was difficult, the coming down was equally so. Having
contracted verbally with Mr. Fobes to buy the tree, I packed the
branches I had cut in cardboard boxes with straw packing and carefully
brought them home to St. Paul.

I wrote at once to my friend, J. F. Jones, of my expedition, telling him
of my plans to propagate this hickory. I also sent him some of the nuts
from the parent tree and samples of extra-good nuts from other trees
growing near it so that he could give me his opinion of them. Mr. Jones
responded by advising me about the kind of a contract to make with Mr.
Fobes in regard to both the purchasing and propagation of the original
hickory tree and he urged the latter enthusiastically. Of the Weschcke
hickory nuts themselves, he wrote: "This is practically identical with
the Glover. The Glover is usually a little larger but this varies in all
nuts from year to year. This is a fine nut and if it comes from Iowa, it
ought to be propagated. I suggest you keep the stock of it and propagate
the tree for northern planting, that is for Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin,
etc., where most nuts grown here would not mature." A few years ago, I
saw the Glover hickory nut for the first time and I also thought it much
the same as the Weschcke in shape, as is also the Brill.

Because I did not know how to preserve the scions I had cut, they dried
out during the winter to such an extent that they were worthless for
spring grafting. This meant losing a whole season. The next fall I
obtained more scionwood from Mr. Fobes and having kept it in good
condition during the winter by storing it in a Harrington graft box
shown by illustration, I was able