etting down to the splice graft. The reason why I didn't try it
before was because it didn't seem reasonable to believe that the simple
splice would hold. It was because I was so busy with many other
responsibilities that on one occasion I neglected to brace some large
splice grafts. Thus I learned that the splice graft would hold even
through the very severe storms in our vicinity of Stamford, Connecticut.
We have violent thunder storms and sometimes for a few minutes in
advance of a storm we have a wind velocity of sixty or seventy miles an
hour. If at the time the leaves happen to be wet the battering power of
a seventy-mile wind is so tremendous that it will break out almost any
form of graft. But my splice grafts during the past two years, simple
splice grafts, subjected to this sort of storm, have not given way on a
single occasion so far as I know, much to my surprise.

I will pass about some examples of the simple splice graft first and
then show how we do it.

Here is a Stabler black walnut graft on common black walnut stock last
year. For years I had been in the habit of cutting my scions and
throwing the stubs away. I had a nice lot of hardy looking stubs in the
grass and I said to myself "Why not try some of the stubs?" They made a
very fine growth. I didn't lose one of them. Here is one of the big stub
grafts and here is the growth it made last year. Here is another plain
splice and the growth it made last year. This tree was killed by the ice
in the river on my place last year. Sometimes in the spring we have
great masses of ice come down that run through the orchard and kill some
of my trees. That is the reason I cut off this one. I have only brought
specimens that were injured but they show perfectly well. In this
smaller splice you see I fitted the scion to the diameter of the stock.
In the larger one I took no pains to do that. Furthermore the paraffin
method was used. The scion is covered entirely with paraffin and I think
you will notice, by rubbing your fingers over this stock, that the
paraffin, although two years have elapsed, is all there. It is because I
put it on in such a fine layer that it expanded with the growth of the
scion.

Not always, but in order to make sure that my simple splice graft would
hold, I have sometimes put in screws. I use flat-head, brass, wood
screws, seven-eighths inch long.

I will put in some screws for you. So, if any of you fear that the
simple splice grafts may