The hickories may be budded and grafted on one another so that one kind of stock may serve for both shagbark and pecan.
If you want to grow the Persian walnut (_Juglans regia_), often called the "English" walnut, the black walnut (_J. nigra_), seems to afford the most promising stock, though _J. rupestris_, native in Texas and Arizona, has been recommended and _J. cordiformis_, the Japanese heart nut, is also promising. This nut can be recommended for planting for its own sake as the tree is hardy, a rapid grower, comes into bearing early and bears a fairly good nut. There are no grafted trees, however, so the variable seedlings will have to be depended upon.
On any of these walnut stocks the black walnut and the butternut (_J. cinerea_) may also be propagated if worthy varieties can be found. There are none now on the market.
The nuts mentioned are enough for the beginner and the three stocks, chestnut, hickory and walnut, will give him all he wants to work on and furnish plenty of fascinating occupation.
The hazel, the almond and others, though offering possibilities, had better be left to those further advanced in the art of nut growing.
Now the nut orchard is started and the owner must push the growth of the trees by the ordinary methods, cultivation, cover crops and fertilizers. See any authority on growing fruit trees.
In from two to five years the trees will be ready for budding and grafting, they will have made a good growth above ground, and a bigger one below, they are permanently placed and haven't got to be set back a year or two, or perhaps killed, by transplanting, with loss to the tap roots and laterals. In the writer's opinion that natural tap root of the nut tree growing down, down to water is not to be treated as of no importance.
So let your seedlings grow up and down happily while you get ready the stuff with which to build their future character, for seedling trees are very slow in coming into bearing, and uncertain in type and quality of nut. Grafted trees bear early and true to type.
Take your choicest bit of ground and put it in the best shape you know how. Then order the finest grafted trees you can find on the market. (See circular on "Seedsmen and Nurserymen".) Your choice will be limited for there are as yet only a few grafted varieties of the Persian walnut and the Indiana pecan, and but one of the shagbark hickory to be had. Of chestnuts there are more and, in the South of course, plenty of pecans. But pecan growing in the South is another story. If you order chestnuts be sure that they do not come from a nursery infected with blight. Get young trees because they are more easily established.