Different species of hickory act differently when subjected to top working methods. The bitternut may be cut back severely without giving evidence of any great degree of shock. The shagbark on the contrary makes slow recovery and many years are required for a cut-back shagbark hickory to regain normal equilibrium between top and root. The pignut and mockernut apparently stand midway between the bitternut and the shagbark in respect to the trimming of the top. My experience with shagbark includes the top working of trees ranging from a few inches in diameter up to fifteen or twenty inches in diameter, and the cutting back has included all stages from actual felling of the tree to cutting off half of the top or less than half of the top. The idea of felling trees completely was to graft stump sprouts or to insert the slot bark graft into the stump near the ground. When this has been done the larger hickories do not send up stump sprouts at all and the root dies excepting in cases in which a slot bark graft has been introduced. The graft grows slowly without a great degree of vigor and requires so many years for balancing the root that the method has not been practical up to the present time. The same statement is true of the shagbark hickory which has been trimmed back very severely leaving nothing but the stubs of large branches to be grafted immediately or for the purpose of grafting sprouts in the following year. The bark of the shagbark hickory is so hard that new shoots are choked severely and many years are required before they have a secure hold upon the stock. My final conclusion is that we may cut shagbark limbs having a diameter of three inches or less for the purpose of leaving grafting stubs. If a large number of grafts are inserted in such a topworked tree or in stock sprouts which start and are grafted in the following year the work is successful. In order to avoid the labor of topworking a large shagbark tree in its entirety we may graft only one or two limbs and allow stock sprouts to grow on other limbs until both stock sprouts and graft sprouts have become well branched. Branches carrying stock sprouts may then be removed a few at a time year after year, leaving the graft sprouts in charge finally.