t to the nut world, at least in the East. I think it had
been tried in California before. We have tried his methods and
everything else that government experts or any other expert told us
about, and we have read all the magazines that were published from the
South to the North. Everything seemed to be a failure and finally I got
disgusted and said "We will do it to suit ourselves." After we had tried
all the hard ways in Christendom I think we have at last found an easy
way to do it. Like everything else it is easy when you know how. I
believe it is a fact--and I am saying nothing but what I believe--I
don't believe you will ever successfully graft pecan trees in the North,
unless you equalize your sap flow by pruning your roots. I tried it and
failed. It is possible you may be able to side graft under most
favorable conditions. You may make a side graft take if you leave the
top on to take care of the extra sap flow. You take off the top of a
pecan tree, or any other nut tree in this country, and you ruin your
root system because your sap comes with such vengeance--and it comes!
One day there is no show of sap and the next day it comes with
vengeance. Differences in the soil, of course, makes some difference. At
Mr. Littlepage's place, Paul had the sap a week before I did and Mr.
Wilkinson had it four days before. A great many of our top works are
going to the bad because we ruined the root system when we cut the tree.
And I want to say it again, I don't believe we can make a success of it
in the North. You may do it in Oregon where you have a distributed sap
flow. The Oregon fellows say you can't bud, because they don't know how.
They say the only way you can produce trees is to graft. That may be
true out there but you can't graft in Indiana, I know, especially on my
place. Of course the soil of each particular farm has something to do
with it. To illustrate my point, the first year I was in the state of
Wisconsin, on the 20th of June, I was out in the country and saw a man
setting tobacco. I knew him and I said, "Won't that tobacco get frost
bit?" and he said, "I reckon not. It might but it never did." I thought
it would, but I went that way in two weeks again and I changed my mind.
I had been used to seeing tobacco growing in the Ohio valley where it
does its growing in the latter part of the season. In the South the sap
flow is much better distributed than it is in the North.

Now, then, I have brought a board alon