ltivate
them if he expects to have them grow and develop rapidly.

I now have my oldest trees in sod, mostly weeds this year, but I intend
to sow it to grass. I expect then to mow it early in June and use it for
a mulch and then mow it maybe a couple of times more for looks sake and
let the grass lie.

Now another interesting point I want to present to the intending planter
of a nut grove is the error of following the foolish advice given out by
some of planting seedlings and then grafting them. I say this not for
the benefit of the nurserymen but for the financial benefit of the
planter. First, the grafting of nut trees is a highly technical job and
requires an enormous number of moves, from the first thing of cutting
the grafting wood at the proper time in the winter and carefully storing
it, until the cutting off of the stocks and knowing how long to let them
bleed, and then grafting at the proper time, the proper shading of the
graft, sprouting, staking, and tying up of the rapidly growing graft
until the end of the growing season, so that the average man will have
fallen down long before the season is over. And even if he has the time
to do this, which the busy man hasn't, it will take him several years to
learn to graft. By the time he has his legs run off over a period of
five or seven years going from tree to tree set 60 or 70 feet apart
doing more duties than he ever thought were needed, he will have a
spotty grove of trees from one year old to bearing age, and then he will
wake up and find that the first grafted ones are bearing so well, that
should he have bought grafted trees and set them all out at one time the
crop would have paid for the complete planting and he would have saved
the long agony of trying to get a grove started. Even then he might not
have one started, for grafting nut trees is a job every body does not
seem able to grasp.

At the same time I feel that everybody who has a planting should learn
the art of grafting. The few nurserymen now growing grafted nut trees
are very willing to teach you and it is nice to be able to turn the
fence row seedlings into profitable trees, it's nice to have the kick of
feeling you can develop a wonderful tree with your own hand. And again,
although I have had, I would say 95 per cent of my planted trees to
grow, still here and there a top will die and suckers come up. As the
tree roots are established it's nice to be able to stick a graft on
these and save