Some of these early trees survive today,
however, and although few in number, they have shown me that the
experiment was a worthy one since it laid the foundation for results
which came later. In fact, I feel that both the time and money I spent
during that initial era of learning were investments in which valuable
dividends of knowledge and development are still being paid.
In grafting black walnuts on butternut trees, I very foolishly attempted
to work over a tree more than a foot in diameter and I did not succeed
in getting a single graft to grow on it. Other younger trees, from three
to six inches in diameter, I successfully grafted. Some of these are
still living but clearly show the incompatibility of the two species
when black walnut is grafted on butternut. The opposite combination of
butternut on black walnut is very successful and produces nuts earlier
and in greater abundance than butternut does when grafted on its own
species.
The expense of buying trees by hundreds was so great that after a year I
decided that I could very easily plant black walnuts to obtain the young
trees needed as understocks. When they had grown large enough, I would
graft them over myself.
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