|
|
 Over
a three to four year period, I probably
traveled to every small town and down
every dirt road in Indiana looking at
trees (not always walnut). Meeting up
with landowners at a given place and
time (no cell phones) and finding the
right road (no GPS) was a huge problem.
You should have seen some of the
directions--both written and spoken.
“Now y'all come to a corner and Mabel’ll
have a sign in the yard that her house
is for sale and you take the right there
and go to the curve. My woods is on the
left and as you come to it you'll see a
big pile of snow the county dumped
there.” (Did I fail to mention that it’s
June now?) “Walk down into the woods and
the tree is right in front of you. You
can't miss it.” I learned that that
statement meant we definitely would miss
it.
The next problem was, how do you get the
grafting wood (twigs) from the tree top
to the ground? City trees were easy—we
could use pole pruners, but most of our
selections were up to 120 feet tall and
the first branch at perhaps 50 feet. I
wasn't too thrilled at the prospect of
climbing a tree that tall to get a twig.
In the southern pines, the technique
they used to obtain grafting wood was to
shoot it out with a .222 rifle and
hollow point shells. You can imagine
what the reaction was from the Purdue
administration when I put in the
purchase order for a rifle and ammo. You
would've thought I was trying to get CIA
clearance, but we prevailed. I doubt
that many of you have fired a .222
rifle, but it has a real kick and is as
loud as a cannon. We often fired this
thing fairly close to housing, and it
usually took many shots to bring down
the coveted branch with twigs attached
for grafting. If the wind was blowing,
there were times when a full box (20
shells) would be expired before bringing
the branch to heel. The other problem
was that as the branch ricocheted down
through the tree (the best branches are
at the top of the tree, of course) or
neighboring trees, they usually would
get hung up half way down. This
necessitated the pruning of the lower
branches with more bullets. We learned
that small diameter twigs were hard to
hit and you got few grafting buds per
shot. So we went for the 2-4 inch
diameter branches, and if we could get
one down, we would have enough twigs to
make several grafts. Considering that we
shot something like 250 trees, the
public reaction was fairly quiet. Only
one time did the police intervene and
that was, of course, near the Purdue
campus involving Purdue's finest--the
Purdue University Police Department.
It was early spring, and we were trying
to get some twigs to force male pollen
shedding, so I called the Purdue Police
Department and told them (as I had
before when collecting grafting wood)
that we would be doing research in
McCormick's Woods shooting black walnut
trees to get twigs from the tops of the
trees. The chief said “OK”-- after much
arguing about, “You’re doing what?” and
that he would inform the officers on
duty.
We found our tree and began blasting
away. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw
something large moving and so did Bill.
Masters was still trying to shoot down
branches and Pennington got a very
nervous look on his face. Suddenly we
were surrounded and “drop the gun” rang
out. It became obvious that about 10
uniforms with drawn guns were moving
toward us through the small trees that
were just beginning to leaf-- out.
First, you have to know the times and
circumstances. On our side, four young
guys (yes, I was young then, too) and
while Bill and I looked sort of normal;
that is, short hair and small builds,
Chuck at 6-5 and 250 lbs. (ex-football
lineman) with beard, mustache and long
hair, and Steve fairly good size, with
long black hair looked a little
intimidating. Of course, we all had
scruffy blue jeans and flannel shirts
on, and with my youthful appearance, I'm
sure they were thinking, “Oh sure this
guy is a prof?” Because back then,
professors were seldom out of a suit and
tie. Also, this was 1969-- the height of
the anti-war- hippie movement. The only
real anti-war incident at Purdue was an
attempted bombing of the ROTC building
which occurred just a month or so before
we were found shooting in the woods.
Also, considering that, as fate would
have it, Purdue President, Hovde was
participating in his favorite
pastime—golf---on the golf course just
about 100 yards to the south of our
location. Our perspective, of course,
was a little different. We see cops
surrounding us with drawn guns. They
approach and say, “What the hell do you
think you're doing?” “Well”, I calmly
explained, “We are shooting branches out
of black walnut trees”. Do you have any
idea how ridiculous that sounded? I told
them we had permission. They replied
that the chief told them that there was
someone from forestry who had permission
to shoot in McCormick's Woods. I said,
“Yes, that would be us”. He said, “This
is Stewart's Woods. McCormick's Woods is
over there behind Hovde’s house. I said,
“No, go out to the edge of the woods and
look at the sign you just passed by.”
While at gunpoint, we all did that and
sure enough, the sign, in foot- tall
letters, said “McCormick's Woods”. So
with some embarrassment and much
apology, he gave back the gun and said
that we really shouldn't shoot that
close to the golf course. And we never
did again.
© 2010
Purdue Number One
 |
|
