MR. BIXBY: There is a series of paraffines pure paraffines which are known only in chemical laboratories and also a number which can be obtained without much difficulty. The common parowax I think is the grade that is known in the trade as 120. That is it melts at 120 degrees F. but paraffin can be obtained without much difficulty that melts at 125°, 128° and 130°, so if the parowax is too soft for Mr. Bechtel's district I am sure he can get something that will be all right. He might have to send to New York to get it but it is readily obtained there.
MR. BECHTEL: I have used bees wax and find that that melts at a higher temperature.
DR. MORRIS: I want complete transparency.
MR. FOSTER: Would it be out of order for a beginner to ask what type of grafting Dr. Morris uses in his work on these trees.
DR. MORRIS: I think that somebody who was not a beginner might ask that quite as well. I have tried almost all the methods employed by the experts and have gotten down to very simple principles. If I am going to get fifty, sixty, eighty or ninety per cent of catches in hickory as we sometimes do I have to use methods that are very simple. For limbs that are small not larger than one's finger the plain cleft graft is good enough and I like as far as possible to choose a branch that is about the diameter of the scion. If the limb is larger in diameter than the scion I make my cleft to one side so that the cambium line of stock and scion will correspond. It is important to have cambium layers together. By all means the best feature of all in my grafting work is what I call the bark slot. This bark slot consists in making two parallel lines in the stock bark the width of the scion. I turn down that tongue of bark and stick in the scion. I turn back the bark again and bind all with raffia. That is the bark slot graft. The bark slot is by all means the most successful method that I have ever employed. What are the objections to it? Not so firm a hold on the stock as you will get in a cleft. What are you going to do about it? Put on good strong braces for the growing stock. I find it does not do much harm to drive galvanized nails right into the tree to hold the brace, three or four nails right into the limb, and then tie the rapidly growing shoot to the brace. If I do not do that the new shoot blows out very readily when I use the bark slot. In other words you will catch more by this method and lose more unless you give the grafts a good deal of attention.