Mr. MCCOY: Because it will injure it. It is essential to cover all the cut surface you can. Make it waterproof at the top, and have it open at the bottom.
MR. POTTER: How long does that stay on the bud?
MR. MCCOY: I don't know as that makes any difference unless you want to force the bud.
MR. MCELDERRY: When do you take that off?
MR. MCCOY: I don't know as that makes any difference. I have thousands of them that have been on five or six weeks. I take it off when action begins. It varies, it may be two weeks and it may be six and it might be six months. If you have maximum budding conditions generally the tree itself will tell the story. We frequently take it off and have to rewrap.
MR. W. C. REED: Would ten days be too quick?
MR. REED: Fruit trees is two weeks, but pecan trees are not quite as quick?
MR. MCCOY: Pecan trees will come through the rye about as quick as a peach tree.
MR. REED: I am talking about cherry trees.
MR. MCCOY: I think about twenty or twenty-five days is about right. You know as well as I do that cases are not all alike, and you have to know when to unwrap.
PROFESSOR CLOSE: How can you tell this if the bud is covered up?
MR. MCCOY: You can tell easy enough if the bud is alive, just like anything else.
MR. MOSELY: You say you can't graft pecan trees here?
MR. POTTER: And what will you do about the nut trees?
MR. WEBBER: What value is the grafting to us?
I don't think root grafting is a success, although we have some fine trees that are root grafted. I don't know what it is but there is something wrong; some of them are all right, to be sure but I don't find it a general success. Of the two methods, grafting and budding, I will bud.
MR. HARGIS: Mr. McCoy, I have a number of seedling pecan trees in good healthy condition and I want to transform them into good bearing trees. What shall I do?
MR. MCCOY: Mr. Littlepage will cover that.
THE PRESIDENT: I don't know about that, whether I can or not, but that will come later. There is one thing that ought to be covered, or demonstrated here, and that is the method of working the hickory and the pecan by the slip bark method. I think the slip bark method in the hickory and pecan is a method that everybody ought to know, and also this ought to be used with the walnut tree. Some of the walnuts ought to be top worked to English walnuts in the North. And it's the same way with the hickory through this section. There are thousands and tens of thousands that ought to be top worked to fine shagbarks, and I am going to call on Mr. White who is the most successful man in this topwork method I have ever seen. I top worked twenty-six this spring, and got twenty-three to grow; he did twenty-two and made twenty-one grow, so that record beats mine. I will say also to those of you who are interested, get a copy of Mr. Olcott's _Nut Journal_ and you will see a lot of good cuts showing the results of top working. To those of you who do not know Mr. White I will say that he is associated with me in some tree work and I think he is perhaps one of the most successful top workers I have ever seen. Paul, you will now give us your demonstration.