The best time to remove large limbs to secure rapid growth of bark from the sides of the cut, is just at the time the sap is rising.  There will be some outflow of sap, but of no particular loss to the tree.  As soon as the large wounds have dried sufficiently, the exposed surface should be painted to prevent cracking of the wood.

Eastern or California Black Walnuts?

I am told that the Eastern black walnut is a more suitable root for the low lands in California than the California black.  Is this true?

There has been no demonstration that the Eastern black walnut is more suitable to low moist lands than the California black walnut.  Our grandest California black walnut trees are situated on low moist lands.  Walnut Grove is on the edge of the Sacramento river with immense trees growing almost on the water’s edge.  Walnut Creek in Contra Costa county is also named from large walnut trees on the creek bank land.  We have very few Eastern black walnut trees in California and although they do show appreciation of moist land, they are not in any respect better than the Californian.

Ripening of Walnuts.

I send you two walnuts.  I am in doubt if they will mature.

The nuts are well grown, the kernel fully formed in every respect.  Whether they will attain perfect maturity must be determined by an observation of the fact and cannot be theoretically predicated.  Where trees are in such an ever-growing climate as you seem to have, they must apparently take a suggestion that the time has arrived for maturity from the drying of the soil.  The roots should know that it is time for them to stop working so that the foliage may yellow and the nuts mature.  It is possible that stopping cultivation a little earlier in the season may be necessary to accomplish this purpose.

Cutting Below Dead Wood.

I have some seedling English walnut trees which are two years old, but they are not coming out in bud this year.  They are about three feet high, and from the top down to about 10 inches of the ground the limbs are dark brown, and below that they are a nice green.  I cut the top off of one of them to see what is the matter that they do not leaf out, and I found that there is a round hole right down through the center of the tree down to the green part.  The hole is about three-sixteenths of an inch in diameter.  The pith of the limbs has been eaten away by some kind of a worm from the inside.  Would it be better to cut the tree down to the green part, or let them alone?

It is the work of a borer.  Cut down to live wood and paint over the wound or wax it.  Protect the pith until the bark grows over it or you will have decay inside.  If buds do not start on the trunk, take a sucker from below to make a tree of.  You could put a bud in the trunk, but it is not very easy to do it.

Walnuts in Alfalfa.

Will the walnut trees be injured in any way by irrigating them at the same time and manner as the alfalfa — that is, by flooding the land between the checks?  Will the walnuts make as good a growth when planted in the alfalfa, and the ground cultivated two or three feet around the tree, as though the alfalfa was entirely removed?  Is it advisable to plant the trees on the checks rather than between the checks?