American Nut Journal 12(4): 49 (October,1921)

Odd Grafting Results
WILLARD G. BIXBY

Editor American Nut Journal:

In the August Nut Journal, appears the experience of Mr. Fred W. Heyne, Douglas, Arizona, grafting chestnuts on two species of oak and also hickories, pecans and other species of walnut on the native walnut of Arizona.

Dr. Morris has done some work of this nature and as a matter of fact, it is difficult to find any kind of experimental work in connection with nut growing that Dr. Morris has not tried. As Dr. Morris has found the grafting of a species of one genus on a species of another genus to give results that are so often freakish and so far devoid of practical utility, he has determined to publish nothing on the subject until he gets something in bearing. I trust I am not violating confidence in telling the Journal some of the things he has done.

At the present time he has European chestnut growing thriftily and with good looking joints on the white oak, Quercus alba; the scrub oak, Quercus nana, and on the chestnut oak, Quercus prinus; as well as the Paragon chestnut on Quercus prinus. He has had them grow on the red oak, Quercus rubra, but they died or blew off because of defective wood formation at joints. He has also tried experiments of grafting hickories on walnuts and vice versa; but, while they grew one year, they were killed the next winter. He has also had roses bloom on apple, pear and mountain ash stocks two or three years but finally they gave up the ghost. Apparently the seeker for knowledge on what can be done with grafting between the different genera must be prepared for almost an unlimited number of failures; but, out of it, something useful may come, as for example, the grafting of pear on quince which is now the standard dwarfing method for pears and that of apple on doucin which makes a really satisfactory dwarf apple tree.

In view of the chestnut blight and the present difficulty not to say impossibility of growing chestnuts in the blight area, if it is found that by some arrangement, we can raise chestnuts on oak then if the blight does take the chestnut grafts it will be comparatively easy to insert others in the oak stock and in the course of two or three years get our bearing trees back again. It seems possible that these experiments of grafting chestnut on oak may prove to be something worth while. On a large top-worked oak it would probably be necessary only to cut out any blighted limb and the other limbs would soon fill the space.