f opinion is that ultimate results are poor. This is
probably because the shagbark starts early and makes its season's growth
in about six weeks, while the pecan naturally has a much longer growing
season. However, these observations have been made, mostly, in the South
and it may be different in the North. The question is not yet finally
decided.

The Stanley shellbark, H. laciniosa, is completely at home on the
shagbark, apparently, but has not yet borne with me.

The Hatch bitternut grew luxuriantly on shagbark for a year but blew
off.

The Zorn hybrid made a growth of one foot on shagbark but then was
winter killed, apparently.

I have a back pasture full of vigorous pignuts, H. glabra, which for
eleven years I have been grafting with faith which now seems childlike,
that soon I would have fourteen acres of bearing hickory trees. Yet as a
result of all these years of grafting the only hickories that I have
found to thrive are the Brooks, which appears to be vigorous, the
Terpenny, which is vigorous and bearing nuts in its fourth year, and
possibly the Barnes. Not a single pecan survived more than a year,
though many started. The Beaver hybrid makes a long spindling growth and
then, in the first or second year, the leaves turn yellow and mosaic and
the growth dies. The Kirtland, Kentucky, Hales, Taylor and several
others, have all with me, proved failures on the pignut. Mr. Bixby's
experiments appear to be showing somewhat different results.

The question of the compatibility of species and varieties is really a
very important one because in some localities either the pignut or the
mockernut is the prevailing species, and we wish to know with what
species and varieties they may be successfully grafted. For instance, if
the Barnes, which is an excellent shagbark, will do well on both the
pignut and the mockernut, where so many other varieties fail, and the
Brooks is at home on the pignut, these are highly important facts to be
known by the man with fifteen acres of hilly woodland full of young
pignuts and mockernuts.

_Size of Stocks_

I prefer stocks of moderate size, up to three inches in diameter. One
gets greater results for the labor with these than with larger trees. Of
course a tree of any size may be topworked but the labor is
disproportionately greater, especially in the after care.

_Cutting Back Stocks for Topworking_

I doubt if it is important to cut back stocks during the dormant season,