The Secretary: Following my plan, a man would buy a small number of fine
trees and set them out at once; that would probably be all he would
undertake and all he could probably manage. He would also plant a small
number of nuts on which to experiment in propagation. My experience up
in Connecticut has been that all my southern transplanted trees, almost
without exception, have died. I have planted pecans and Persian walnuts
from a number of different nurseries. I have done it personally and done
it as carefully as I could, but they have either made a very feeble
growth indeed or have all died. On the other hand, the seeds I have
planted have grown into very vigorous trees.

Mr. Rush: I have had a little experience with the tap-root theory. You
can't dig a walnut tree without cutting the tap-root, and that tap-root,
I find, is practically of no benefit at all after you have your upper
laterals, and an abundance of them; by cutting the tap-root growth is
stimulated and a new tap-root is made. It is very largely in the mode of
pruning the tap-root. You can readily stimulate the tap-root system.

The Chairman: You try to keep an equilibrium by cutting down the top in
proportion?

Mr. Rush: Yes, sir.

Mr. Pomeroy: In examining transplanted trees I found ten times as many
roots where the tap-root had been cut; and there were two tap-roots. I
like a tree with a good tap-root system and I am positive that if you
transplant a tree you get a better root system, get a great many more
roots.

The Chairman: The tree development, it seems to me, depends not upon the
number of roots which are carried with it when it is transplanted, but
upon the feeding roots which develop. Now, if we cut back the tap-root,
cut back the laterals, cut back the top, we have a tree carrying in its
cambium layer, food, just as a turnip or beet would carry it--and I look
upon a transplanted tree much as a carrot or beet, with stored food
ready to make a new root.

Mr. Harris: I planted last fall a year ago a lot of English walnuts.
Would the gentleman advise taking those up, cutting the tap-roots and
planting them again?

Mr. Rush: I don't think that would be advisable.

Mr. Harris: They were grown from the nuts sown in a row last fall a year
ago and grew very well.

Mr. Rush: In propagating the English walnut we have had them do the best
by transplanting when the tree is about two years old, but it will more
or less disturb the vigor of a tre