Pruning Grafted Walnuts.

Should English walnut trees be pruned?  I have along the roadside English walnuts grafted on the California black, and they have grown to very large size and the fruit seems to be mostly on the outside of the trees.

English walnuts are not usually pruned much, though it is often desirable, and of course trees can be improved by removing undesirable branches and especially where too many branches have started from grafts, it is desirable that some be removed.  They should be cleanly sawed off and the wound covered with wax or thick paint to prevent the wood from decaying.

Pruning Walnuts.

When is the best time to remove large limbs from walnut trees?

This work with walnuts or other deciduous fruit trees should be done late in the winter, about the time the buds are swelling; never mind the bleeding, it does no harm, and the healing-growth over the wound is more rapid while the sap is pushing.

Grafting Walnuts.

In cleft grafting walnuts is it necessary to use scions with only a leaf bud, or with staminate or pistillate buds?  Is cutting the pith of the scion or stock fatal to the tree?

In grafting walnuts it is usual to take shoots bearing wood buds, and not the spurs which carry the fruit blossoms, although a part of the graft containing also a wood bud can be used, retaining the latter.  Cutting into the pith of the scion or of the stock is not fatal, but it is avoided because it makes a split or wound which is very hard to heal.  For this reason it is better to cut at one side of the pith in the stock, and to cut the scion so that the slope is chiefly in the wood at one side of the pith and not cutting a double wedge in a way to bring the pith in the center.

Grafting Nuts on Oaks.

I have 10 to 15 acres of black oak trees which I wish to graft over to chestnuts.  Can grafting be done successfully?

Some success has been secured in grafting the chestnut on the chestnut oak, but not, so far as we have heard, on the black oak.  But grafts on the chestnut oak are not permanently thrifty and productive, though they have been reported as growing for some time.  The same is true of English walnut grafts on some of the native oaks.

Grafting Walnut Seedlings.

Would it be proper to graft one-year California black walnut seedlings that must also be transplanted?

As the seedlings must be moved, plant in orchard and graft as two or three-year-olds, according to the size which they attain.

Pruning the Walnut.

What is the proper time for pruning the walnut?  Is it bad for the tree to prune during the active season?  I have recently acquired a long-neglected grove in which many large limbs will have to be removed in order to allow proper methods of cultivation to be practiced, and I am in doubt as to the wisdom of doing this during the rise of sap.