Peter Gideon of Wealthy apple fame. After 2 winters, these 7
seedlings are still with us and seem to grow faster than the shagbarks
(ovata).

Other attempts to vary our diet (if we live long enough) are a few
Chinese chestnut seedlings. A couple secured from the Nut Tree
Nurseries, Downington, Pa., in 1940 are now 3 and 4 feet high and
apparently in a good state of health. They are leisurely growing, which
may be a good thing. Trees like the Manchurian walnut which grow 6 to 8
feet of new wood in a year, seem to freeze back and start over more
frequently than the trees which poke along but harden their wood before
cold weather. In 1946, a few more seedlings from D. C. Snyder, Center
Point, Iowa, were set out and most of them have survived the first
winter. Carl Weschcke reports that chestnuts do best for him at River
Falls, Wisconsin, in sandy soil with an acid reaction. If I ever raise a
chestnut, I'd like to send him one.

Fooling with nuts has led to another activity which has been pleasant
though not very practical so far. Each spring, Dr. Brierley spends a
couple of days with me trying to graft some of the named varieties to
our available wild trees. We have raised nuts on some of the hickory
scions grafted to the plentiful native bitternuts, but in general our
grafts have failed. We have had good advice from many sources and have
tried most everything but our successes have not been numerous enough to
cause any inflation of the ego. We're inclined to think that the sudden
wide variations of temperature which are common here in May, can be the
controlling factor. We've made a few walnuts, hickories, and hicans
grow, but still have too many zeroes for any complacency. This year may
be our bonanza. Most of the grafts on some 40 trees are shooting buds.
Perhaps it's the grafting tape we tried this spring. In 1948 we'll be
able to write it all down in the book--and try again.

Nuts are not the only food crops growing on trees. We have read the
glowing reports of sweet pods of honey locust grown on such varieties as
Millwood and Calhoun, as told by John Hershey and J. Russell Smith. Our
Millwoods all killed the second winter and this year we're trying
Calhoun. Meanwhile, we're hunting for a hardy, northern grown sweet
tree. Miss Jones asked nut growers to tell me what they had and several
interesting replies and samples were received. The quality of the pods
varied all the way from the sweet Millwood to our native ho