Sidney and Carl Schlagenbusch live in the southeastern part of Iowa. The walnut orchard is on high land overlooking the Mississippi River bottom. The ground was formerly oak and hickory timber. Most of their other plantings are near the farm buildings which are just below the higher ground. The first planting of the walnut orchard was made in 1928 and was completed 8 or 10 years later. It consisted of 205 trees. Later additions have been made. There are about 325 grafted trees in the orchard at present, most of them of bearing age. The trees are spaced 50 feet by 50 feet in staggered rows. Some of the branches are beginning to touch. The diameter of the larger trees is 18 inches. The orchard is in grass which is not grazed close. The larger portion of the orchard is the Thomas variety. They have a selection of their own which was first in the Iowa contest a few years ago. I thought it outstanding, but they consider it a little small. The nuts are gathered in a wagon and run through a corn sheller, then cleaned in a device they made themselves. The nuts are then floated and dried. Over half of the crop is cracked and sold as kernels. They have been getting around a $1.20 per pound in Fort Madison. No crop to date has exceeded a thousand dollars in value. They also have several hickories and hybrids. The shellbark variety, Wagoner, is outstanding--the best I've seen. It is large, thin shelled, cracks easily, and is of good quality. A small tree grafted on shagbark is bearing well. They have the common varieties of pecans, a few chestnuts, a few English walnuts, Japanese walnuts and hybrids. The Winkler Hazel has not been very productive with them. They had several trees of Stabler, which were not satisfactory so they cut the trees off close to the ground and put 6 or 8 bark grafts in the stump. They saved the largest one as the main trunk and taking a graft or a large sprout from the opposite side of the stump, inarching it into the main trunk two or three feet up. This prevents the wind from blowing the graft off of the stump. It also makes it possible to utilize the strength of the roots from the opposite side of the stump. They had several trees worked this way which are now of good size. In addition to caring for their large farm, nut orchard and a choice herd of Hereford cattle, Carl has found time to do some breeding work with Oriental poppies from which he has made some very choice selections. They have also worked with several other perennials. Sidney and Carl Schlagenbusch are true horticulturists by nature and are fine folks.