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+————————————————————————————————————+ |DISCLAIMER | | | |The articles published in the Annual Reports of the Northern Nut Growers| |Association are the findings and thoughts solely of the authors and are | |not to be construed as an endorsement by the Northern Nut Growers | |Association, its board of directors, or its members. No endorsement is | |intended for products mentioned, nor is criticism meant for products not| |mentioned. The laws and recommendations for pesticide application may | |have changed since the articles were written. It is always the pesticide| |applicator's responsibility, by law, to read and follow all current | |label directions for the specific pesticide being used. The discussion | |of specific nut tree cultivars and of specific techniques to grow nut | |trees that might have been successful in one area and at a particular | |time is not a guarantee that similar results will occur elsewhere. | +————————————————————————————————————+
43rd Annual Report
OF THE
Northern Nut Growers Association
Incorporated
AFFILIATED WITH THE AMERICAN HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY
Annual Meeting at
ROCKPORT, INDIANA
August 25, 26 and 27, 1952
Table of Contents
Officers and Committees 1952-53 4
State and Foreign Vice Presidents 5
Constitution and By-laws 7
Call to Order, Forty-Third Annual Meeting 11
Address of Welcome—Hilbert Bennett 11
Business Session 15
Treasurer's Report—Carl Prell 18
Committee Reports 21
President's Address—L. H. MacDaniels 27
The Future of Your Nut Planting—W. F. Sonnemann 32
The Value of a Tree—Ferd Bolten 35
Methods of Getting Better Annual Crops on Black Walnut. Panel discussion led by W. W. Magill 38
The 1952 Hickory Survey—H. F. Stoke 46
A Discussion of Hickory Stocks—Gilbert L. Smith 49
Filbert Varieties. Panel discussion led by G. L. Slate 53
My Experiences with Chinese Chestnuts—W. J. Wilson 62
Persian Walnuts in the Upper South—H. F. Stoke 66
Varieties of Persian Walnuts in Eastern Iowa—Ira B. Kyhl 69
Commercial Production and Processing of Black and Persian
Walnuts—Edwin L. Lemke 71
Black Walnut Processing at Henderson, Kentucky—R. C. Mangelsdorf 73
Nut Shells: Assets or Liabilities—T. F. Clark 77
The Propagation of Hickories—Panel discussion led by
F. L. O'Rourke 81
A Promising New Pecan for the Northern Zone—J. W. McKay and
H. L. Crane 89
The Hickory in Indiana—W. B. Ward 91
The Merrick Hybrid Walnut—P. E. Machovina 93
Producing Quality Nuts and Quality Logs—L. E. Sawyer 94
Colchicine for Nut Improvement Programs—O. J. Eigsti and
R. B. Best 99
An Early Pecan and Some Other West Tennessee Nuts—Aubrey
Richards 101
Scab Disease in Eastern Kentucky on Busseron Pecan—W. D.
Armstrong 102
Further News about Oak Wilt—E. A. Curl 102
Life History and Control of the Pecan Spittle Bug—Stewart
Chandler 106
Insect Enemies of Northern Nut Trees—Howard Baker 112
Tuesday Evening Banquet Session Resolutions and Election of
Officers 118
Chestnut Breeding—Arthur H. Graves and Hans Nienstaedt 120
Effect of Vermiculite in Inducing Fibrous Roots on Tap Rooting
Tree Seedlings—Herbert C. Barrett and Toro Arisumi 131
Eastern Black Walnut Survey 1951—H. F. Stoke 133
Crath's Carpathian English Walnuts in Ontario—P. C. Crath 136
Nut Tree Plantings in Southeastern Iowa—Albert B. Ferguson 146
Rockville as a Hickory Interstock—Herman Last 147
A Fruitful Pair of Carpathian Walnut Varieties in
Michigan—Gilbert Becker 147
Suggested Blooming Data to be Recorded for Nut Tree
Varieties—J. C. McDaniel 148
Note on Chinese Chestnuts—Harwood Steiger 149
Scott Healey—An Obituary 149
A Letter from Dr. W. C. Deming 150
Sweepstakes Award in Ohio Black Walnut Contest—L. Walter
Sherman 152
Attendance Record, Rockport, Ind. 1952 156
Membership List—Northern Nut Growers Association 158
Officers for 1952-53
President Richard B. Best, Eldred, Illinois
Vice-President George Salzer, Rochester, New York
Secretary Spencer B. Chase, Norris, Tennessee
Treasurer Carl F. Prell, South Bend, Indiana
Directors Dr. L. H. MacDaniels, Ithaca, New York
Dr. William Rohrbacher, Iowa City, Iowa
EXECUTIVE APPOINTMENTS 1952-53
Program Committee:
Dr. J. W. McKay, Royal Oakes, Gordon Porter, Gilbert Becker, A. A.
Bungart, W. D. Armstrong.
Local Arrangements:
George Salzer, Victor Brook.
Place of Meeting Committee:
R. P. Allaman, Dr. Lloyd L. Dowell, Edwin W. Lemke, Alfred L. Barlow.
Publication Committee:
Professor George L. Slate, Professor Lewis E. Theiss, Dr. L. H.
MacDaniels.
Varieties and Contests Committee:
Dr. L. H. MacDaniels, J. C. McDaniel, Sylvester M. Shessler, H. F.
Stoke, Royal Oakes.
Standards and Judging Committee:
Dr. L. H. MacDaniels, Dr. H. L. Crane, Louis Gerardi, Spencer Chase,
Professor Paul E. Machovina.
Survey and Research Committee:
H. F. Stoke (With all the state and foreign vice-presidents).
Exhibits Committee:
Sylvester M. Shessler, Dr. L. H. MacDaniels, H. F. Stoke, Royal Oakes,
A. A. Bungart, J. F. Wilkinson.
Root Stocks Committee:
Professor F. L. O'Rourke, J. C. McDaniel, Albert F. Ferguson, Dr. Aubrey
Richards, Louis Gerardi, Dr. Arthur S. Colby, Max Hardy, Gilbert Smith.
Auditing Committee:
Raymond E. Silvis, Sterling A. Smith, Edward W. Pape.
Legal Advisor:
Sargent H. Wellman.
Finance Committee:
Sterling A. Smith, Ford Wallick, Edward W. Pape.
Necrology:
Mrs. Herbert Negus, Mrs. C. A. Reed, Mrs. G. A. Zimmerman.
Nominating Committee:
(Elected at Rockport, Indiana), Max Hardy, Gilbert Becker, Dr. William
Rohrbacher, Professor George L. Slate, J. Ford Wilkinson.
Membership Committee:
George Salzer (With all the state and foreign vice-presidents).
State and Foreign Vice-Presidents
Alabama Edward L. Hiles, Loxley
Alberta A. L. Young, Brooks
Arkansas W. D. Wylie, Univ. of Ark., Fayetteville
Belgium R. Vanderwaeren, Bierbeekstraat, 310, Korbeek-Lo
British Columbia, Canada J. U. Gellatly, Box 19, Westbank
California Thos. R. Haig, M.D., 3021 Highland Ave., Carlesbad
Colorado J. E. Forbes, Julesburg
Connecticut A. M. Huntington, Stanerigg Farms, Bethel
Delaware Lewis Wilkins, Route 1, Newark
Denmark Count F. M. Knuth, Knuthenborg, Bandholm
District of Columbia Ed. L. Ford, 3634 Austin St.,
S. E. Washington 20
Florida C. A. Avant, 960 N. W. 10th Ave., Miami
Georgia William J. Wilson, North Anderson Ave., Fort Valley
Hawaii John F. Cross, P. O. Box 1720, Hilo
Hong Kong P. W. Wang, 6 Des Voeux Rd., Central
Idaho Lynn Dryden, Peck
Illinois Royal Oakes, Bluffs (Scott County)
Indiana Edw. W. Pape, Rt. 2, Marion
Iowa Ira M. Kyle, Box 236, Sabula
Kansas Dr. Clyde Gray, 1045 Central Ave., Horton
Kentucky Dr. C. A. Moss, Williamsburg
Louisiana Dr. Harald E. Hammar, 608 Court House, Shreveport
Maryland Blaine McCollum, White Hall
Massachusetts S. Lathrop Davenport, 24 Creeper Hill Rd.,
North Grafton
Michigan Gilbert Becker, Climax
Minnesota R. E. Hodgeson, Southeastern Exp. Station, Waseca
Mississippi James R. Meyer, Delta Branch Exp. Station, Stoneville
Missouri Ralph Richterkessing, Route 1, Saint Charles
Montana Russel H. Ford, Dixon
Nebraska Harvey W. Hess, Box 209, Hebron
New Hampshire Matthew Lahti, Locust Lane Farm, Wolfeboro
New Jersey Mrs. Alan R. Buckwalter, Route 1, Flemington
New Mexico Rev. Titus Gehring, P. O. Box 177, Lumberton
New York Stephen Bernath, Route No. 3, Poughkeepsie
North Carolina Dr. R. T. Dunstan, Greensboro College, Greensboro
North Dakota Homer L. Bradley, Long Lake Refuge, Moffit
Ohio Christ Pataky Jr., 592 Hickory Lane, Route 4, Mansfield
Oklahoma A. G. Hirschi, 414 North Robinson, Oklahoma City
Ontario, Canada Elton E. Papple, Cainsville
Oregon Harry L. Pearcy, Route 2, Box 190, Salem
Pennsylvania R. P. Allaman, Route 86, Harrisburg
Prince Edward Is. Canada Robert Snazelle, Forest Nursery, Route 5,
Charlottetown
Rhode Island Philip Allen, 178 Dorance St., Providence
South Carolina John T. Bregger, P.O. Box 1018, Clemson
South Dakota Herman Richter, Madison
Tennessee W. Jobe Robinson, Route 7, Jackson
Texas Kaufman Florida, Box 154, Rotan
Utah Harlan D. Petterson, 2076 Jefferson Ave., Ogden
Vermont A. W. Aldrich, R. F. D. 2, Box 266, Springfield
Virginia H. R. Gibbs, Linden
Washington H. Lynn Tuttle, Clarkston
West Virginia Wilbert M. Frye, Pleasant Dale
Wisconsin C. F. Ladwig, 2221 St. Lawrence, Beloit
CONSTITUTION
of the
NORTHERN NUT GROWERS ASSOCIATION, INCORPORATED
(As adopted September 13, 1948)
NAME
ARTICLE I. This Society shall be known as the Northern Nut Growers
Association, Incorporated. It is strictly a non-profit organization.
PURPOSES
ARTICLE II. The purposes of this Association shall be to promote interest in the nut bearing plants; scientific research in their breeding and culture; standardization of varietal names; the dissemination of information concerning the above and such other purposes as may advance the culture of nut bearing plants, particularly in the North Temperate Zone.
MEMBERS
ARTICLE III. Membership in this Association shall be open to all persons interested in supporting the purposes of the Association. Classes of members are as follows: Annual members, Contributing members, Life members, Honorary members, and Perpetual members. Applications for membership in the Association shall be presented to the secretary or the treasurer in writing, accompanied by the required dues.
OFFICERS
ARTICLE IV. The elected officers of this Association shall consist of a
President, a Vice-President, a Secretary and a Treasurer or a combined
Secretary-treasurer as the Association may designate.
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
ARTICLE V. The Board of Directors shall consist of six members of the Association who shall be the officers of the Association and the two preceding elected presidents. If the offices of Secretary and Treasurer are combined, the three past presidents shall serve on the Board of Directors.
There shall be a State Vice-president for each state, dependency, or country represented in the membership of the Association, who shall be appointed by the President.
AMENDMENTS TO THE CONSTITUTION
ARTICLE VI. This constitution may be amended by a two-thirds vote of the members present at any annual meeting, notice of such amendment having been read at the previous annual meeting, or copy of the proposed amendments having been mailed by the Secretary, or by any member to each member thirty days before the date of the annual meeting.
BY-LAWS
(Revised and adopted at Norris, Tennessee, September 13, 1948)
SECTION I.—MEMBERSHIP
Classes of membership are defined as follows:
ARTICLE I. ANNUAL MEMBERS. Persons who are interested in the purposes of the Association who pay annual dues of Three Dollars ($3.00).
ARTICLE II. CONTRIBUTING MEMBERS. Persons who are interested in the purposes of the Association who pay annual dues of Ten Dollars ($10.00) or more.
ARTICLE III. LIFE MEMBERS. Persons who are interested in the purposes of the Association who contribute Seventy Five Dollars ($75.00) to its support and who shall, after such contribution, pay no annual dues.
ARTICLE IV. HONORARY MEMBERS. Those whom the Association has elected as honorary members in recognition of their achievements in the special fields of the Association and who shall pay no dues.
ARTICLE V. PERPETUAL MEMBERS. "Perpetual" membership is eligible to any one who leaves at least five hundred dollars to the Association and such membership on payment of said sum to the Association shall entitle the name of the deceased to be forever enrolled in the list of members as "Perpetual" with the words "In Memoriam" added thereto. Funds received therefor shall be invested by the Treasurer in interest bearing securities legal for trust funds in the District of Columbia. Only the interest shall be expended by the Association. When such funds are in the treasury the Treasurer shall be bonded. Provided: that in the event the Association becomes defunct or dissolves, then, in that event, the Treasurer shall turn over any funds held in his hands for this purpose for such uses, individuals or companies that the donor may designate at the time he makes the bequest of the donation.
SECTION II.-DUTIES OF OFFICERS
ARTICLE I. The President shall preside at all meetings of the Association and Board of Directors, and may call meetings of the Board of Directors when he believes it to be the best interests of the Association. He shall appoint the State Vice-presidents; the standing committees, except the Nominating Committee, and such special committees as the Association may authorize.
ARTICLE II. Vice-president. In the absence of the President, the
Vice-president shall perform the duties of the President.
ARTICLE III. Secretary. The Secretary shall be the active executive officer of the Association. He shall conduct the correspondence relating to the Association's interests, assist in obtaining memberships and otherwise actively forward the interests of the Association, and report to the Annual Meeting and from time to time to meetings of the Board of Directors as they may request.
ARTICLE IV. Treasurer. The Treasurer shall receive and record memberships, receive and account for all moneys of the Association and shall pay all bills approved by the President or the Secretary. He shall give such security as the Board of Directors may require or may legally be required, shall invest life memberships or other funds as the Board of Directors may direct, subject to legal restrictions and in accordance with the law, and shall submit a verified account of receipts and disbursements to the Annual meeting and such current accounts as the Board of Directors may from time to time require. Before the final business session of the Annual Meeting of the Association, the accounts of the Treasurer shall be submitted for examination to the Auditing Committee appointed by the President at the opening session of the Annual Meeting.
ARTICLE V. The Board of Directors shall manage the affairs of the association between meetings. Four members, including at least two elected officers, shall be considered a quorum.
SECTION III.—ELECTIONS
ARTICLE I. The Officers shall be elected at the Annual Meeting and hold office for one year beginning immediately following the close of the Annual Meeting.
ARTICLE II. The Nominating Committee shall present a slate of officers on the first day of the Annual Meeting and the election shall take place at the closing session. Nominations for any office may be presented from the floor at the time the slate is presented or immediately preceding the election.
ARTICLE III. For the purpose of nominating officers for the year 1949 and thereafter, a committee of five members shall be elected annually at the preceding Annual Meeting.
ARTICLE IV. A quorum at a regularly called Annual Meeting shall be fifteen (15) members and must include at least two of the elected officers.
ARTICLE V. All classes of members whose dues are paid shall be eligible to vote and hold office.
SECTION IV.—FINANCIAL MATTERS
ARTICLE I. The fiscal year of the Association shall extend from October 1st through the following September 30th. All annual memberships shall begin October 1st.
ARTICLE II. The names of all members whose dues have not been paid by
January 1st shall be dropped from the rolls of the Society. Notices of
non-payment of dues shall be mailed to delinquent members on or about
December 1st.
ARTICLE III. The Annual Report shall be sent to only those members who have paid their dues for the current year. Members whose dues have not been paid by January 1st shall be considered delinquent. They will not be entitled to receive the publication or other benefits of the Association until dues are paid.
SECTION V.—MEETINGS
ARTICLE I. The place and time of the Annual Meeting shall be selected by the membership in session or, in the event of no selection being made at this time, the Board of Directors shall choose the place and time for the holding of the annual convention. Such other meetings as may seem desirable may be called by the President and Board of Directors.
SECTION VI.—PUBLICATIONS
ARTICLE I. The Association shall publish a report each fiscal year and such other publications as may be authorized by the Association.
ARTICLE II. The publishing of the report shall be the responsibility of the Committee on Publications.
SECTION VII.—AWARDS
ARTICLE I. The Association may provide suitable awards for outstanding contributions to the cultivation of nut bearing plants and suitable recognition for meritorious exhibits as may be appropriate.
SECTION VIII.—STANDING COMMITTEES
As soon as practical after the Annual Meeting of the Association, the
President shall appoint the following standing committees:
1. Membership 2. Auditing 3. Publications 4. Survey 5. Program 6. Research 7. Exhibit 8. Varieties and Contests
SECTION IX.—REGIONAL GROUPS AND AFFILIATED SOCIETIES
ARTICLE I. The Association shall encourage the formation of regional groups of its members, who may elect their own officers and organize their own local field days and other programs. They may publish their proceedings and selected papers in the yearbooks of the parent society subject to review of the Association's Committee on Publications.
ARTICLE II. Any independent regional association of nut growers may affiliate with the Northern Nut Growers Association provided one-fourth of its members are also members of the Northern Nut Growers Association. Such affiliated societies shall pay an annual affiliation fee of $3.00 to the Northern Nut Growers Association. Papers presented at the meetings of the regional society may be published in the proceedings of the parent society subject to review of the Association's Committee on Publications.
SECTION X.—AMENDMENTS TO BY-LAWS
ARTICLE I. These by-laws may be amended at any Annual Meeting by a two-thirds vote of the members present provided such amendments shall have been submitted to the membership in writing at least thirty days prior to that meeting.
Forty-Third Annual Meeting
Northern Nut Growers Association
August 25, 26, 27, 1952
Spencer County Court House, Rockport, Ind.
The opening session of the Forty-third Annual Meeting of the Northern
Nut Growers Association convened at 9:20 o'clock, a.m., at the Spencer
County Court House, President L. H. MacDaniels presiding.
PRESIDENT MacDANIELS: The gavel with which we open this forty-third annual meeting of the Northern Nut Growers Association has some historical significance. It was made from a pecan tree which grew in the orchard of Mr. Thomas Littlepage in Maryland, near the city of Washington, and it has been the custom of the Association to open its meetings with that gavel.
The forty-third meeting of the Northern Nut Growers Association will be in order. To open the session we will have the presentation of the colors. You will all stand, please, and remain standing through the invocation. (Colors presented by Boy Scouts and the invocation given by the Reverend William Ellis of Rockport.)
PRESIDENT MacDANIELS: At this time we will call on Mr. Hilbert Bennett to bring us greetings from the people of Rockport. Mr. Bennett of Rockport.
Address of Welcome
HILBERT BENNETT, Rockport, Ind.
Some are here that were here in 1935 and 1939. I was on the Citizen's
Committee in each of those years. It was the purpose of the Citizen's
Committee to take notice of your coming and to try to make you
appreciate our interest in you and in your coming.
Why was I on that Committee in 1935?
Why was I on that Committee in 1939?
Why am I on that Committee in 1952?
I will tell you.
When I was a boy two other young men, somewhat older than I, were young men in the same township and somewhat closely located. I knew those boys and I knew them well. You came to know them and know them well. One of those boys was the late Thomas P. Littlepage, a charter member of this Association. It was my good pleasure to teach school with him. We attended College together. At college we roomed together. We attended conventions together and were close personal friends. I think I was in position to know him and know him well. The other boy was R. L. McCoy. We too, were close personal friends. We too, taught school in the same territory and contemporary with T. P. Littlepage. Prior to any organization of the N.N.G.A. I went with these two boys (men by that time) on trips of investigation and inspection of certain nut trees about which they had heard and which they wanted to examine.
If the trees examined met the proper standards, they wanted to use them in propagation. If not they would pass them up.
Another boy somewhat younger than myself and the two above mentioned boys, joined most heartily into the nut discussions and investigations and explorations of promising clues. With them he helped to run down clues when they would hear of a promising prospect. The jungles were never too dense, the distance too far, the road too muddy or rough, for those three characters to run down in those horse and buggy days, any prospect in which they were interested. This boy also became a member of your most valued organization. I have a special interest in this boy. I was, especially closely associated with him and his family. He went to school to me. My signature appears on his Common School Diploma. Their home was my home whenever I sought to make it so. I was free to come and go. I came a lot. Ford Wilkinson, the third character, and I have been close friends ever since.
Another one of your fine members became a good friend of mine. He came into our county and planted a farm to nut trees and nut production. It is now the largest nut orchard in the county. I am informed that at that time it was the largest nut farm of hardy northern varieties in the world. I got acquainted with him early and became endeared to him. It was none other than the late Harry Weber.
When it became known that you were to meet here in 1935, it was a natural sequence that Ford Wilkinson, knowing that I would gladly help in any way I could and knowing I was his genuine friend saw fit to place me on the Citizen's Committee. If he had not, I positively would have climbed aboard anyway. You couldn't have driven me out with a peeled hickory club. I was just going to be in on it whether or no.
Whether I performed well in 1935 or whether he couldn't find any one else to serve in my place, I never knew; but he again placed me on the Committee in 1939.
Now here I am in 1952 an old broken down fossil, broken in health, but not in spirit, of little consequence to anybody or anything, I am still on the Committee.
That answers the question of some of you of why that old man Bennett is always on the local committee and that you have wondered if there is no other person in this whole community that will serve but him. No, friends, we have many who would gladly serve and I doubt not that would serve much more efficiently.
I have prepared a short "skit" that I wish to present.
* * * * *
1st. Introducing Joan Flick, of Washington, D. C.
I am a pecan plucked from a small orchard planted by a retired business man. He had some surplus ground near his premises that was too rough for easy cultivation. He thought that he would plant it to pecans so that his family and his children's families would have nuts for their own use and pleasure. He took good care of the trees. He fertilized them every year and sometimes oftener. In the course of a few years he not only had more pecans than all of the families could use, but he sold hundreds of pounds of nuts from these trees. He developed a commercial orchard unconsciously.
2nd. Palma Smith of Cincinnati, Ohio.
I am the hican, I have no commercial value of consequence. I demonstrate the ability, the interest, the development and the possibilities of improvement by the determined efforts of the members of your association. Knowing your ability and determination to make improvements in nut culture, I have every feeling that in the not too distant future you will develop me into a profitable commercial product.
3rd. Sandra Wright of Rockport, Indiana.
I am the walnut, a most valuable tree for fine fruit and fine timber for many uses. I have been noted for my fine grain and my ability to take a fine polish. Our forefathers immediately found the walnut to be the choice timber out of which to build fine furniture, gun stocks, home furnishings and many other things that required high grade material. We have never lost sight of its significance.
Thin shelled nuts, easily cracked, and hulled out in halves have been developed. Walnuts will grow almost any where. Originally it was a common forest tree and would continue to be if it had the opportunity. There is little danger of the walnut becoming extinct. It is too valuable. I suggest that you plant liberally to high grade walnut trees.
4th. Jo Ann Hall of Rockport, Indiana.
I am the once popular beech under whose folds thousands of picnickers have gathered and enjoyed life's most savory and pleasant moments. I have built thousands of American homes and farm barns. I have built thousands of miles of old farm plank fences. I have built car load after car load of beautiful, useful and valuable furniture. In the early period of this country I furnished mast for thousands of swine that fed many families. I have filled many minor places of usefulness. As sad as it is to do and as much as I hate to do so, I am now bidding you a last farewell.
Self interest, the slowness of my growth and the impracticability of propagation of this once valuable tree leaves but one course, that I pass to my reward with the firm hope that the other trees now being developed, and grown will fill all of the purposes for which I have been so useful, and fill them with increased usefulness. With this sad but necessary adieu, I bid you one and all goodbye.
5th. Pattie Jones of Rockport, Ind.
I am the oak, the sturdy oak, the king of the forests. I am stout. They make beams, spars, sills, fulcrums and what not from me that require strength. I grow fairly fast. I came into usefulness as the world came into need of heavy timbers.
I am dainty and refined as well as strong. I am used in making fine flooring, fine furniture and many other useful things. Please do not discard me from production. Please do not let me pass into oblivion. I am very very valuable. I deserve to be perpetuated.
6th. Marcia Smith of Cincinnati, Ohio.
I am a pecan plucked from the tree of a man who in the early years of his married life planted pecan trees in unused spots on his farm that were unsuitable for cultivation. As the trees grew into nut bearing trees his family of children grew. In the October days, with great gaiety, glee and happiness, the children would gather the fruit of those trees. The children grew to maturity and went to the city to work; but when those October days came they returned home and with similar happiness as of their youth they gathered the nuts from those trees. With pleasure I say I am one of those trees.
7th. Jean Morris, Joyce Morris and Sandra Wright, all of Rockport, Indiana.
We are a group of clusters, the filbert, the pecan and the walnut. We came from a nut farm within the bounds of Spencer County. This farm was planted and developed by a former enthusiastic member of your wonderful organization. He spent much time and energy in behalf of your organization. He developed the largest nut orchard in the county. I refer to Harry Weber, who came from a neighboring state and endeared himself to this community by his superb manhood, his genial disposition and his intense interest in his subject matter. We commend his efforts to others.
8th. Virginia Mae Daming of Rockport, Ind. She was carrying the former Reports of the N.N.G.A.
This cluster is plucked from a "Tree" of great magnitude and
significance. Today it has its roots firmly set in Rockport, Indiana.
Its branches reach from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from Canada to
Mexico. Its influence is felt throughout the world.
Its inception was in Spencer County, Indiana, not specifically detailed, but in the main, by boys that were reared among the native nut trees of this community of which there were many. It was born in the great City of New York under the care of the late Thomas P. Littlepage, Dr. Wm. C. Deming, Dr. Robert T. Morris and Prof. John Craig. It was nurtured throughout the land of the detailed history you know much more than I.
It has had an enormous growth. It is a most meritorious organization. Language will not express the extent of its benefits to humanity and to civilization. It adds to the comfort of untold thousands of happy homes. It furnishes employment for thousands of people. It furnishes food of vital importance to many families. It is the main stay in the manufacture of all kinds and grades of furniture. It furnishes food for thought. It keeps the scientific and investigating minds busy in the constant development and improvement of its processes and benefits. Its possibilities are boundless.
That this "Tree" may continue to grow and develop in the future as it has in the past in the interest of humanity and help us to realize its importance and help us to continue its forces in accord with nature and nature's God is my earnest prayer. May God bless you one and all.
PRESIDENT MacDANIELS: Thank you very much, Mr. Bennett. You have made us feel most welcome in Rockport, as you have before on two other occasions. I don't believe that there is any other man who has welcomed this organization three times in the same locality.
We also thank you for bringing in the trees and the children to greet us on this occasion. It isn't very often that the trees themselves come into the assembly room to greet us, and we appreciate your effort in doing this for us.
We will now proceed with the business of the Association.
There appears to be no record of the members elected to serve on the nominating committee for this session. As near as we can determine this committee is as follows: Mr. Silvis, Mr. Allen, Mr. Wilkinson, Mr. McKay and Mr. Gerardi.
Is there a motion to approve these names?
The committee was approved by vote.
PRESIDENT MacDANIELS: This Committee will bring in a slate of officers of the Association for the next year at our final business session.
I will now call for the reports of standing committees. There are eight of these. The Program Committee. Royal Oakes is the chairman. The fact that we are having a meeting indicates the functioning of the Program Committee.
MR. OAKES: I believe I have nothing to report at this moment. I would like to say the other members did a good part of the committee work.
PRESIDENT MACDANIELS: We appreciate the part that all of you have played in arranging these meetings.
The Publications Committee, Editorial Section. Dr. Theiss, I believe, is not here. Dr. Theiss received the manuscripts and either had them read or read them himself.
The Printing Section of the Publications Committee, Mr. Slate.
MR. SLATE: Our proceedings are on the press and probably will be finished and in the mail this week.
PRESIDENT MacDANIELS: The Place of Meeting Committee. Mr. Allaman is the chairman. In the absence of Mr. Allaman, I present the invitation secured by Mr. Salzer, to meet in Rochester, New York in 1953. Their convention bureau offers very attractive facilities and the invitation is seconded by the Mayor, Joseph J. Naylor, the president of the Rochester Convention and Publicity Bureau, the President of the Rochester Hotel Association, the President of the Junior Chamber of Commerce of Rochester, and the Deputy Commissioner of the Rochester Parks, which just about covers the board.
It doesn't seem to me worthwhile to read all of this material. What it boils down to is that Rochester would be a very good place to meet. The Rochester parks are very interesing places to go, and as I understand it, there are facilities which would not be expensive to the Association. Is that true, Mr. Salzer?
MR. SALZER: Yes, there would be no charge for exhibit rooms if they are held in the hotel, because we are classed as a scientific organization. And we would have the facilities of the Bausch Memorial Museum. There would be facilities for showing moving pictures or slides, and for an exhibit.
PRESIDENT MacDANIELS: It would be in order at the present time to take definite action on this Rochester invitation, if you care to do so. A motion would be in order to accept.
It has been moved, seconded, and carried that we have our 1953 convention in the City of Rochester, the dates will be determined by the Board of Directors.
The general thinking of the Board of Directors is that we will go to Lancaster, Pa. again in 1954, and in 1955 come back into the Middle West. Mr. Allaman has been working on the Lancaster proposal and I think there has been some spade work done in Michigan already. Have you anything to say about that, Mr. O'Rourke?
MR. O'ROURKE: We will be very glad to have you at Michigan State College at any time. Unfortunately, however, we do not have any nut plantings there. The nut plantings are either in the eastern part of the state or the western part. It's quite a drive either way.
PRESIDENT MacDANIELS: I don't think we have to make a commitment at this time, but it is something to be brought to the attention of the Place of Meeting Committee.
I think we might have a little further explanation from Mr. Best about his bacon breakfast.
MR. BEST: We said in our membership drive that anyone who would go out and work would bring home the bacon, and we further fortified the deal that we were going to furnish the bacon here at Rockport at this session. So in the morning over at Cotton's restaurant we will have bacon, all you want to eat, and the only requirement is that you either got a member last year in the membership drive we have been working on, or that you tried to get a member. That's all that's necessary.
MR. GRAVATT: You have spoken about the meeting in 1954. As you know, I have represented this country at the International Chestnut Meeting for two years. There has been some talk about the possibility of the N. N. G. A. inviting the International Chestnut Meeting to meet in this country in 1954 or '55. At the last meeting the delegates from Japan recommended that they meet in the United States in 1954. The matter is not decided, and I think if you will put off decision about Lancaster until later, it would be a little better.
PRESIDENT MacDANIELS: The committee on Standards and Judging, Mr.
Spencer Chase.
MR. SPENCER CHASE: Mr. President, we contemplated having a report on hickory standards for this meeting, but because of circumstances beyond our control, we didn't get the project under way.
PRESIDENT MacDANIELS: I will call on our secretary at this time for the report of the meeting of the directors.
MR. McDANIEL: There were several things brought up last night at the
meeting of the Board of Directors of the Northern Nut Growers
Association. One matter was the subscription to the American Fruit
Grower magazine which we give our membership.
The American Fruit Grower had been selling subscriptions to the Association for its members at 30 cents a year. Since the first of July this year their rate is 50 cents. The opinion of the directors and committee members present last night was that we should drop that subscription to the American Fruit Grower for our members. It will be sent to all members who join for this year and up to the beginning of the next fiscal year. After October 1st, no subscriptions to the American Fruit Grower through the Association. Do we have any discussion on this proposal? (Considerable discussion followed.)
PRESIDENT MacDANIELS: I suggest that we hear the report of the Board of Directors and then act on the various items one by one in executive session.
MR. McDANIEL: You have heard something about the membership drive, and we will have more on that later. The directors suggested that we encourage more memberships, contributing memberships and sustaining memberships in the Association at $5.00 and $10.00 per year. Some of us feel we can't pay any more than $3.00 for our membership; others will be able to support the organization financially by taking memberships at the $5.00 or $10.00 rate, and we are still offering our life membership at $75.00.
Another matter discussed was offering the set of 34 volumes of back reports in The Nutshell at the price of $20.00 for the 34 volumes now available.
We suggest also that the Association authorize the appointment of a Publicity Committee to work with the Membership Committee in attracting new members.
That is about all I have as the report of the directors' meeting last night, Mr. President.
PRESIDENT MacDANIELS: This matter of the Board of Directors reporting to the business session is a pattern which I think is a good one. The proposition has been placed before you as to whether or not you wish to continue our affiliation with the American Fruit Grower magazine. As you will recall, the reason the question comes up at the present time is that they have raised their rate from 30 cents a member to 50 cents a member, which is 50 cents of our $3.00, which with the 50 cents secretarial expenses leaves but $2.00 to run the society. As the Treasurer will explain to you later, we are in somewhat of a financial difficulty.
It has been moved and seconded that the Association subscription to the
American Fruit Grower be discontinued.
This matter is up for discussion.
MR. MCDANIEL: We have much more space available in The Nutshell than in the American Fruit Grower, and there is the possibility of more frequent publication.
MR. DOWELL: If we could actually get it bi-monthly or quarterly, in place of the Fruit Grower, I think most all of us would be better informed and actually have more information. And The Nutshell is a very excellent means of showing somebody what the organization is about. You give them a copy of the American Fruit Grower, and if he is interested in nuts, most copies aren't going to convince him of much.
PRESIDENT MacDANIELS: I think this question is related to the appointment of a Publicity Committee which will explore what can be done to secure more publicity and give more information about nuts to our members than has been possible in the Fruit Grower.
The members of the Board of Directors felt that $300-plus is a high price to pay for what we got out of The American Fruit Grower.
(The question was called for.)
The motion is passed without dissent.
The question of authorizing the appointment of a Publicity Committee is introduced mainly as a matter for your information, also because it's much better if the society as such were to authorize such a committee. Do I hear such a motion?
Moved by Mr. Salzer, seconded by Colby and passed that the appointment of a Publicity Committee be approved.
I will ask for the report of the Treasurer, Mr. Prell.
Treasurer's Report
MR. PRELL: Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Best has asked that I help in connection with his report. That certainly is not because I can make his report better than he can, but probably because a new member is not a new member until his check has arrived and has been recorded, and I happen to have those figures. I will be happy to do that, but perhaps we should start first with the report that the President has asked for, the Treasurer's report.
I imagine that you are uninterested in an itemized, detailed report of receipts and expenditures; I imagine you are interested in the question: How are we doing? We are not doing too well. The annual report for this year indicates that our financial condition is not satisfactory. For the second successive year we have spent more money than we have taken in, and that would be the third successive year, if it hadn't been for the fact that due to the lateness of the publication in 1950—that it, the annual report—we did not pay for an annual report that year. That means there are three years in a row that we have gone downhill.
The picture is not entirely black, however. There are some bright spots. For instance, all our bills are paid. Second, we have money in the bank. Third, our $3,000 investment in Government bonds is still intact, and fourth, our deficit this year was less than it was last year, which may indicate that we have already touched bottom and are starting up.
The cause of our deficit is easy to put your finger on. We are operating on budgets that are ten years old, and costs have gone way, way beyond. Dues were increased several years ago, but even at that time they were not increased adequately, and since then costs have skyrocketed.
The membership situation is not too bad, though the cost situation is bad. The two don't jibe at all. The reason we have a lesser deficit this year than last is Mr. Best's work and the work of his vice-presidents in increasing the membership, and the results of that work; I think, have only begun to show.
Specifically, we came within $417 of collecting enough money this year to pay our expenses. It was over $500 last year, making a total of a thousand dollars that we have spent above our receipts. While we have some money in the bank, there will be a bill due in about 30 days on the publication of the annual report, that will be mailed within the next few days. And that will take all the money that is in the bank, plus what we are able to collect in dues immediately, and I hope that many of them are paid at once. But that still leaves us without money to operate through the year, and by January, unless conditions change, we will be borrowing money.
The Board of Directors has discussed this. They have some thoughts on the subject which will be presented to you by Dr. MacDaniels. I think that one of the obvious things that you all think of and I may mention is the matter of increased membership. That's an obvious solution, and as I said a minute ago, it's a very possible solution.
The work that was started by Mr. Best last February is only now beginning to bear fruit. New memberships, even as late as this for this year, in August, are coming in very, very well. I personally see no reason why the membership cannot be increased to a thousand members next year, providing all of us bring in a member or two.
I asked a friend of mine on The Country Gentleman for some data on state population compared to farm population. I forget just exactly now how it runs on various states, but I do recall Indiana. We have a population here of four million people. There are about 700,000 of these people on 166,000 farms. The farms in this state produce a wealth of $75,000,000 a year. With 700,000 farmers in this state and population of 4,000,000 with a wealth of $75,000,000 a year, it would seem to me that the State of Indiana should have more than only 39 members. Out of that group we should certainly increase that ten times. We should have 400 members, and if the same proportion is carried throughout the nation, why, this organization can easily obtain a roll of 7500 to 10,000 members. A thousand members next year should be a pushover. So much for the financial report.
Mr. Best's campaign started last February. His vice-presidents were given material and the inspiration to work for new members, and they responded. For Mr. Best I compiled the list of the new members who have been brought in, with the people who have brought in the greatest number, but that thing went galley-west in the last few days by the strong finishers. Mr. Best himself came in yesterday with a pocket full of 11 new members, and he already had a couple on the list. Up to that time—and I am not giving credit to the Secretary, because several of the members that show his sponsorship have come naturally through his office. So disregarding the sponsored members of the Secretary, Spencer Chase was top man, up until Mr. Best upset him yesterday, followed by Dr. Rohrbacher, who was a late finisher with members who were not recorded in this report. All through the year it was a battle between Pennsylvania and Illinois as to who would have the greater number of members.
Illinois, with 36 members, hopped up to 60, and Mr. Best's 11 make 71. And just this morning they got two others from Illinois, making 73. So I think Illinois has the second place position firmly nailed down.
Last year we had 563 members all together. This year now we have 170 new members. We can't add that to 563, because in every organization there is a loss of membership every year, and it's to be expected that our membership should have a 10 per cent turnover through circumstances of people leaving their places where they have their nut tree plantings, deaths and other circumstances. So there was a net gain of 86 members to date.
TREASURER'S REPORT
August 25, 1951 to August 18, 1952
RECEIPTS
Membership Dues $1,907.00
Sales of Annual Reports 190.00
Interest on U. S. Bonds 37.50
Donations 48.95
U.S.P.O. Unused Balance, Permit 3.05
Petty Cash 1.97
TOTAL $2,188.47
DISBURSEMENTS
41st Annual Report (Pleasant Valley) $1,375.86
Plates and printing, 900 copies $1,271.16
Envelopes, 2500 31.65
Mailing 73.05
The Nutshell 86.55
Printing & mailing Vol. 4, No. 3 28.64
Printing & mailing Vol. 5, No. 1 57.91
American Fruit Grower 191.60
582 Subscriptions at 30¢ 174.60
34 Subscriptions at 50¢ 17.00
Urbana Meeting 163.68
General Expenses 20.28
Reporting & Transcribing 143.40
Secretarial Help, 50¢ per member 317.00
Stationery and Supplies 179.81
Association Promotion 114.91
Application Folder, 5000 90.02
Supplemental Folder, 650 17.69
Things-of-Science 7.20
Secretary's Expense 77.23
Treasurer's Expense 94.04
Dues, American Horticultural Society 5.00
TOTAL $2,605.68
Cash on deposit, First Bank, South Bend $1,313.78
Disbursements 2,605.68
$3,919.46
— — — —
On hand August 26, 1951 $1,730.99
Receipts 2,188.47
$3,919.46
— — — —
U. S. Bonds in Safety Deposit Box $3,000.00
I know that Mr. Best has still some more material that he will supply to any of you who are anxious to go out and help in getting the new members. It's only a matter of every person getting a couple, or like Spencer Chase getting 10. That would put us well toward our goal of a thousand members, on which the Association probably can operate without deficit. I thank you. (Applause.)
PRESIDENT MacDANIELS: Thank you very much, Mr. Prell. We are very much indebted to you for your business-like handling of the affairs of the society. It is sometimes bitter to know the facts, but the only way that we are ever going to get anywhere is by knowing the facts and facing them. Either fortunately or unfortunately we are not like the federal government, which can go on piling up deficits. We have to do as each one of us as individuals has to do: If our operating-expense exceeds income, we either have to get more income or cease out-go. That is the situation under which we are confronted at the present time.
A little later we can take up some of the things we have in mind. Did you have a further report, Mr. Secretary?
I think probably the Treasurer stole some of the thunder that you might otherwise have.
MR. MCDANIEL: He did that, and the Membership Committee also. You know something of the activities of the secretary's office during the current year, a matter of getting out three issues of The Nutshell and assisting with the editing of the annual report, which I hope you will receive about the time you get home.
One other activity in which the Secretary participated, in addition to the usual task of answering letters to beginning nut growers, was this project "Things of Science". Perhaps Dr. McKay could tell us more about that. Is Dr. McKay in the room? Will you come up now?
DR. MCKAY: We being near Washington, were, of course, the logical people to come in contact with this suggestion early when it was made. As a matter of fact, the very beginning of this movement goes back to Harry Dengler. Some of you may know of him. He is Extension Forester at the University of Maryland and is also Secretary of the American Holly Association.
Harry Dengler was very much interested in this "Things of Science" program and happened to mention to the Science Service paper, of which Watson Davis is editor, that it would be a desirable thing to work up a test on nuts.
For the benefit of those of you who do not know what "Things of Science" is, it is a movement sponsored by Science Service, located in Washington, D. C, whereby 12,000 subscribers to "Things of Science" receive every month a little kit through the mails dealing with all kinds of subjects in science. It is usually a little box, as in the case of the one on nuts, or it may be simply an envelope with some things in it to taste. The idea is to give people all over the country who are interested enough to pay $5.00 a year one kit a month, each one dealing with a different phase of science.
Many groups subscribe to this service; for instance a boy scout troop, libraries and industrial plants. So it goes to literally many thousands more people than the 12,000 actual subscribers that it has.
So when Science Service came to us and said, "Would you be interested in helping us work up a kit on nuts", naturally, we wanted to do what we could towards helping these people, and our first thought was this organization as an official sponsor for it. So we contacted the directors, the officers, Dr. MacDaniels and J. C. McDaniel, and as a result, the Northern Nut Growers, through its board of directors, because we had no other means to authorize it, went ahead and sponsored this move.
To do it, we approached the California Walnut Growers Association, the California Almond Growers Association, the Northwest Nut Growers Association, and the Southeastern Pecan Growers Association, with the idea of having their names mentioned in the kit, and in return they would furnish samples to distribute. The Northern Nut Growers Association furnished the hickory nut samples. The kit was composed of, as I recall, six different kinds of nuts—Persian walnuts and almonds from California, filberts from the Northwest, Pecans from the Southeast, hickory nuts from the Northern Nut Growers Association, and pistachio nuts furnished through the Department of Agriculture by Captain Whitehouse at Beltsville. He secured the pistachio nuts from the trees in California. The kit was composed of a little box about four inches long, an inch and a half deep and three inches wide, containing two or more nuts of the various kinds, together with a brochure that we helped the science people work up. Dr. MacDaniels and the various cooperating groups worked up this brochure of information. The kits include a set of directions for the subscriber to follow in using the material. There are several different possibilities, all along the lines of scientific experimentation.
The idea is to get these youngsters and young people to become familiar with different kinds of nuts.
I think that's all I should say, Mr. President. That covers pretty well the effort that was made and those who made the effort. (Applause.)
PRESIDENT MacDANIELS: Thank you very much, Dr. McKay. This project is one in which there were deadlines as to time, and we had to work rather fast. Air mail, special delivery, the long distance telephone and telegraph played quite a part in it. The Science Service was paying the cost of assembling and mailing. The only cost to the Association was for the hickory nuts.
MR. MCDANIEL: We were late on that and unable to get the quality nuts we would like, but we did get enough to fill the kits, not all of which were worthy.
PRESIDENT MacDANIELS: We would like to have secured Carpathian walnuts, but the nuts from known sources of supply were so discolored with husk maggot that we were ashamed to send them out. We were not able to locate and to furnish any considerable amount of any kind of northern nuts. Twelve thousand of these kits went out, and each one of them is in a position where it probably contacted a dozen or more on the average, so that I am sure as a result of the effort a great many people not only became more familiar with nuts and their various sources and uses, but also learned that the contest was sponsored by the Northern Nut Growers Association. Mr. Prell, who knows something about advertising, thought it was a very worthwhile project.
That completes the reports of the officers and of the committees. We will now take ten minutes recess.
PRESIDENT MacDANIELS: The session will be in order.
As your treasurer said, there are several other things which we discussed in the directors' meeting. We discussed this matter of how, the situation being such as it is, the Association could improve its position through gaining more members and through either making more money or cutting down expenditures.
The Publicity Committee was one of those suggestions, who were to explore this matter of getting better publicity for less money. That is, whatever publicity we got from the American Fruit Grower cost us about $300, and we think we can do a lot better in some other way.
Another matter was to place the financial situation of the society squarely before the membership and ask that as many as could and felt so inclined take out a contributing or a sustaining membership. We felt quite strongly that raising the dues was not the answer, because there are a lot of people sort of on the fringe who don't work too actively for the society but who do take out regular memberships but who, if we raised the dues even another 50 cents, would probably fail to renew their memberships. So that at least for the present we are not going to go ahead on that basis, unless you want that to come up for further discussion.
Another point which we, I think, should explore was the matter of advertising in the proceedings. Some other associations, the pecan association, particularly, as Dr. McKay pointed out, make a substantial part of their revenue from advertising in the proceedings. We have tried that before, but times have changed, and I think it should be considered again.
Then the matter of speeding up sales of sets of the proceedings to libraries, that is, further publicity in The Nutshell about sets that are for sale and, perhaps, circularizing the library lists to sell complete sets, or as complete as we have.
Another matter that might be explored is having some kind of a "give-away program", some inducement for those who take out memberships for the first time. Other societies do it in one way or another. Unfortunately, our material does not lend itself to that sort of thing as well as some others, but we might be able to give nuts of Carpathian strains that could be used as seed nuts, or perhaps the hybrid hazels.
MR. MCDANIEL: One suggestion made in a letter from Dr. Crane was to distribute hybrid walnuts to grow to fruiting size. That might be explored if there is a source of enough seedlings or seed nuts of Juglans Regia crossed with Juglans Nigra.
PRESIDENT MacDANIELS: We would welcome any further suggestions which you may have, either as to saving money or making money, or increasing our membership, which amounts to making money, of course.
Another thing that might be done to present the possibilities of nut growing to your communities is to sponsor exhibits at your own county or state fairs.
Mr. Slate wanted to make a comment along these lines.
MR. SLATE: That matter of urging sustaining and contributing memberships has been mentioned by you. I think it would be one of the best things we could do to send a statement of our financial condition to the members of the Association pointing out the need for additional funds and suggesting that all who can possibly afford it take out sustaining and contributing memberships. It seems to me that this is just about the only alternative to increasing the dues. I am not sure whether an increase in the dues would result in the loss of many members or not. Perhaps they are getting rather used to the higher price level, and it might be well to have an expression of opinion from some of those here as to whether they thought there would be serious objections to an increase in the dues. Surely, there are many who can afford to carry sustaining or contributing memberships.
PRESIDENT MacDANIELS: That is the opinion of the Board of Directors. Mr. Slate has raised a question as to the validity of the conclusion of the Directors regarding the advisability of raising the dues. Our thinking was that to raise the dues beyond the present level would result in sufficient loss of membership to offset any gain in revenue. The last time we raised the dues what was the effect?
MR. MCDANIEL: When we raised the dues to $3.00 we had a membership of 650. It dropped to about 580; a loss of 60 or 70.
MR. PRELL: We in effect raised dues 50 cents this morning. It won't affect new members, but it may cause some of the older ones who are members to drop. They know that at present 50 cents of their dues are going to the Fruit Grower; now they aren't getting the Fruit Grower.
MR. MACHOVINA: They were getting for $2.50 what they will now get for $3.00.
PRESIDENT MACDANIELS: Any other discussion?
MR. KINTZEL: I have given this problem of increasing the membership quite a bit of thought, and have an idea which might be used. Let's see by a show of hands how many live in the city but own farms outside of the city.
PRESIDENT MacDANIELS: The question is how many live in the city but have farms outside. Sixteen or 17, probably about 20.
MR. KINTZEL: You might call me a city farmer. Like many other city people, I own a small farm near the city in which I live, which is Cincinnati, Ohio. I am intensely interested in the work of the N.N.G.A. There must be many others who, too, are owners of land but who use the land for experimental farming and to get a little diversion from the daily grind in the busy, noisy city. These people would consider it a favor to have their attention called to the interesting work of our organization.
A practical plan for getting in touch with this reservoir of future members is to secure the names and addresses of such land owners from the records at the various county court houses fringing the cities. A personal letter should be written to these future members. A friendly invitation to join the N.N.G.A. should be extended, and a printed brochure describing and explaining its work and objects should be included.
I believe that by working systematically on the city dweller, who also owns acreage outside the city limits, we could give our membership list a big boost.
PRESIDENT MacDANIELS: That is a good suggestion for the Membership
Committee.
Is there anything further?
MR. CALDWELL: This is not a suggestion, but a comment following up the idea of the previous speaker. In Syracuse there was a woman with an estimated 160 acres of land, who about 15 or 16 years ago became interested in planting hybrid chestnuts. Unfortunately, the land was not suitable for raising chestnuts and the two or three hundred trees she planted failed to grow. I don't think there are two alive there now. So you will have to be a little bit careful in encouraging city people to plant nut trees. She spent a lot of money and right now if you mention that, she will just practically tear you apart. She wasted money and time, so be careful in getting people going too strong unless you are sure the trees are going to grow for them.
MR. SNYDER: According to the chart outside, cutting off the Fruit Grower will leave us just a few cents per member in the red.
PRESIDENT MacDANIELS: Right.
MR. SNYDER: Well, don't we have $3,000 in bonds? What are they for, if it isn't to tide us over a hard period like this?
PRESIDENT MacDANIELS: That is a suggestion for the Board of Directors.
MR. SNYDER: If inflation keeps up, the bonds will be worth nothing. We might as well use them up. I would suggest we use every method to balance the budget without them, but if necessary, use some of them up. If it is necessary, use the bonds to balance the budget.
PRESIDENT MacDANIELS: The question of whether or not we use the bonds, I think, would have to be considered very carefully. I think one of the Ohio men has a suggestion.
MR. DOWELL: This discussion would follow along with that on membership. The active members of the Ohio section were organized back in 1946, and in 1948 the national body put in its by-laws a provision that there could be state sections formed. That is Article 1 and also Article 2, that you could have affiliated bodies. Now, as far as I know, there is no other state section.
MR. MCDANIEL: Michigan has one, now.
MR. DOWELL: Michigan has not actually affiliated yet, and when it does come in it will be an affiliated society. According to the by-laws it will not be necessary for all its members to be members of the N. N. G. A.
Now, we feel that some strong state section is the main support in membership interest and a lot of other lines, and I think that if you check the rolls you will find where you have had a state organization, whether it's affiliated or otherwise, particularly Ohio and Michigan, that our membership has not really dropped down in total numbers. Of course, there is a turnover every year. If it has dropped down, it's been slight in comparison with the overall drop down.
MR. MCDANIEL: Ohio is only holding its own now. You have one more member than you had a year ago.
MR. DOWELL: That's right, we are holding our own, and previous to this last run, the total number in the Association was down a hundred. That has not dropped in Ohio, which has the state section. Neither has it recently in Michigan, which has recently organized the Michigan Nut Growers.
The Executive Committee of the Ohio section wishes to present the following resolution for the consideration of this body:
RESOLUTION
"WHEREAS we feel that membership in a state section has been a definite advantage in maintaining and increasing membership in the National Organization, as has been demonstrated in the Ohio Section of the N. N. G. A.;
WHEREAS a National Organization becomes strong because of its
strong local sections which help maintain interest;
THEREFORE the National Organization should encourage and foster the
formation of local sections.
We therefore submit the following motion: That the N. N. G. A.
amend its constitution to provide for the organization of local
sections. These amendments should include the following provisions:
1. Membership in the N. N. G. A. shall be a requirement for full
membership in the local section; however this shall not exclude
local sections from accepting associate members.
2. That each member of the N. N. G. A. shall automatically become a
member of a local section when he resides in a location where a
recognized local section exists.
3. Wherever a local section has become established, the local
chairman shall serve as vice president of the N. N. G. A. for that
area.
4. The N. N. G. A. shall refund to the treasurer of each local section ten percent (10%) of the N. N. G. A. dues paid annually by members of that section."
PRESIDENT MacDANIELS: I conclude that you are presenting this for the consideration of the Association. It would be an amendment to the by-laws, I take it, rather than the constitution. Such an amendment would have to come up for consideration at the next meeting after consideration by the Board of Directors; either that, or else vote on it by mail.
MR. DOWELL: It is purely a motion now, if passed or rejected. But if it is passed, then previous to the Rochester meeting, the proposal would have to be in a suitable form to be either passed or rejected for the by-laws.
PRESIDENT MacDANIELS: We have this resolution in printed form. That will be transmitted to the Board of Directors for consideration at the next meeting.
MR. DOWELL: We make it as a motion that the mass accept or reject it here.
PRESIDENT MacDANIELS: The motion is, then, to accept the resolution and present it to the Board of Directors. Is that right? Is there a second?
MR. KINTZEL: I second it.
PRESIDENT MacDANIELS: Are there further remarks? If not, all in favor, signify by saying "Aye." (Chorus of "ayes"). Opposed? (None.) It is carried.
MR. O'ROURKE: I am very sorry I was not recognized before the vote was taken.
PRESIDENT MacDANIELS: I am sorry.
MR. O'ROURKE: I am speaking, I think, for the Michigan Nut Growers, of which we have quite a group here today, and we are quite anxious to maintain an independent state organization. We feel that it is perfectly all right for this motion to have been adopted as it has been, if there will be no attempt made to delete that section which now refers to affiliation.
PRESIDENT MacDANIELS: I think there would be no attempt to do that.
MR. O'ROURKE: Is that clearly understood that there will be no attempt made to delete the section on affiliation?
MR. DOWELL: That is the understanding. Now, there are two ways in the present by-laws. Now, this would either be a third or replace the first. It would have nothing to do with affiliating groups.
PRESIDENT MacDANIELS: I think that is right, and I think the thing to do, Mr. Dowell, would be to be sure that the new president is apprized of the Michigan point of view in that regard. He will be the chairman of the new Board of Directors, and this is simply a motion to consider it. It doesn't go any further than that.
Is there any further business to come before this group at this time? If not, the other item on the agenda, as it is stated, I believe, is a presidential address.
The Forward Look
Presidential Address, by L. H. MacDaniels
As the retiring president of our Association, it is a time honored custom and a privilege to give what is often referred to as the presidential address. I do not have in mind giving an address but rather to consider with you informally the present situation of the Northern Nut Growers Association and to give my ideas as to what we might do to improve our position and forward the purposes for which the Association was organized in 1910.
Time does not permit recounting the history of the development of the Association. This has been done on several previous occasions. I will, however, go back to the 1945 report in which under the title "Where Do We Go from Here" I tried to pick up various aspects of the condition of the Association immediately following the war and point out areas to which special attention should be given at that time.
Considering our situation in 1952, it appears that many of our problems are about the same as they were in 1945 although in some areas definite progress has been made. A quick look at our problems then and now is perhaps pertinent to the present discussion. One of these is variety evaluation. This still remains one of the important areas where we need much more information particularly as to the success or failure of different named clones of nut trees in various regions. Perhaps it is time for us to carefully summarize whatever data we have accumulated as to the adaptation of varieties or at least make plans for extending a program of evaluation. Since 1945 our survey committees have been active and have secured information that will certainly be helpful.
The problem of judging standards has been clarified somewhat. It is my personal opinion that the judging schedule for varieties of black walnuts worked out with the assistance of Dr. S. S. Atwood is on a sound basis and might well receive much wider use. Following along somewhat the same pattern, suggested schedules have been proposed for the hickories and butternuts. These should receive further consideration and adoption, if approved at least on a tentative basis. A schedule for Persian walnuts is very much needed as indicated by the recent contest in which confusion occurred related to there being no recognized standards of evaluation. With the Persian walnut such matters as the method of cracking and the importance of such characters as sealing of nuts, recovery of whole halves and others should be agreed upon.
Our procedure in naming varieties is still somewhat chaotic. Possibly we should adopt the general pattern of the American Pomological Society. Their example of setting up an approved list of varieties for planting on a regional basis is worthy of consideration. Even though such a list were tentative and incomplete, a start which would embody the best information we have would be valuable.
Securing new varieties of, hardy nut trees through breeding has made some progress. Most encouraging is the work of the Federal Experiment Station at Beltsville where Doctor Crane and Doctor McKay and their associates are using modern techniques in securing new varieties of hardy nut trees. Some progress in hybridization, of course, has been made, particularly with the filberts, the hybrids developed by J. F. Jones, G. L. Slate, S. H. Graham, Heben Corsan and some others, showing great improvement over previous European varieties in their adaptability to the northern United States. At the present time there are filbert varieties of hybrid origin better than those in the nursery trade which should be propagated and made available. Work with the Chinese chestnuts has also been valuable.
It is my opinion, which I believe is shared by most of those who are familiar with progress in securing new varieties, that we are not likely to find in the wild, varieties or clones which show any marked improvement over those already found and named. There is, of course, always the possibility of the "perfect nut" arising as a chance variation. The recent walnut and hickory contests, however, have been somewhat disappointing for they have not discovered any variety of black walnut better than the Thomas for instance, or a hickory much better than some of those located years ago. This does not mean that members of the Association should not keep a sharp lookout for new varieties occurring spontaneously which will be better than existing sorts. It does mean, however, that if real "breaks" are to be secured, it will be necessary to apply some of the more effective techniques which are known in the plant breeding field. Any such program is a long time project and can only be effectively attempted by experiment stations, or by some of the young men, who begin now to make crosses under the direction or at least with the advice of those who are familiar with plant breeding techniques.
Progress has been made in the Association organization. The constitution has been thoroughly overhauled and amended, particularly to provide for regional groups. Certainly such groups are to be encouraged and have done and will do much to strengthen the national organization in the various states. It is my personal opinion that these regional groups can be of particular value in working with the experiment stations and legislatures to promote the interests of the Association. The state associations should be on the alert to build on the interests of conservation departments as related to wildlife preserves and sportsmen's clubs and other agencies which put the growing of nut trees in proper perspective. I am not at all in favor of securing either federal or state support for every minor project which comes along. However, the Northern Nut Growers Association need make no apologies for its program, particularly as it is related to the conservation of our natural resources; to the promotion of better living on the farm and those values which are real and great, even though they do not show up large in dollar value of crops produced.
Unfortunately, projects in nut growing have been started in various states, particularly Ohio and Michigan only to be eliminated before they really got under way because of lack of support. Experiment station directors, if they are confronted with a shortage of funds, are likely to run the blue pencil through items which cannot be backed up with economic considerations. The approach of the Northern Nut Growers Association it seems to me should not be to seek support on an economic basis but rather on the basis of better living on the farm, improvement of gardens and farmsteads and the advantages of growing nut trees as compared with any other horticultural activity. There has been a real increase in the importance which is given to this approach in recent times and an active state association, which can keep in touch with local conditions and call on the national association for additional support, will certainly be of great assistance in the future.
I personally am not in favor of any sort of a set up by which the national association gives a kick back of national dues to a regional association. The dues are inadequate for the national association at the present time. Looking at the whole situation with some perspective, it would seem that the regional associations might contribute to the national association rather than the reverse. If the constitution and by-laws of the Association are not such as to make affiliation with the national association and the formation of regional associations easy, they can readily be changed to secure the very best pattern that can be devised.
Perhaps one of the most acute problems with which the Association is faced is the struggle to keep financially solvent. We are all aware of our changing economy, particularly the increased costs of printing and in fact of everything that our organization uses or needs, even postage. In my thinking, the finances of the Association are much the same as those of an individual, who is confronted with expenditures that exceed his income. The things that have to be done are obvious and the same in both cases. One is to spend less and the other is to secure more funds. In the judgment of your directors and executive committee, expenditures have been reduced as low as is safe in order to keep a going organization. Members join the Association for the value which they get out of it and a large part of this value is in the form of reports, newsletters, information made available and the organization of annual meetings. If these services were discontinued or curtailed, membership falls off. This has been the experience of other plant societies, of which there are many.
In my judgment retrenchment is not the answer in the present situation. Securing additional funds is the best forward-looking policy. The question comes up as to how this may be done. Experience in our Association and I believe other associations as well, has shown that $3.00 is about as far as dues can be raised. There comes a point with every society when, if the dues are increased, there is a falling off of membership, which more than offsets the gain. Other obvious procedures are: (1) increasing the number of members; (2) providing different types of memberships to encourage larger contributions; (3) gifts; and (4) special fund raising projects. Of these various ways and means, certainly increasing the number of members is by far the more promising. The overhead of the association is not increased with additional memberships anywhere near in proportion to the contributions of those members. This is particularly true for additional copies of the report and general office expense. The drive for new members under President Best's leadership has produced gratifying results and I believe if this is continued effectively through the next few years, a membership increase can be secured that will assure the Association's balancing its budget. Somewhere in the neighborhood of a thousand paid memberships would solve most of our financial difficulties. Provision is already made for different types of memberships and it is to be hoped that many who can do so will join the contributing member class at least until we are out of our present financial woods.
Other societies raise considerable revenue through special projects such as the sale of publications of one kind or another, seed distribution or slide rental. The type of material with which the Northern Nut Growers Association deals is not comparable to some of these other organizations but certainly the possibilities of revenue through special projects need to be explored.
Research with northern nut trees is exceedingly important from the standpoint of accomplishing the objectives of the Association. The matter of breeding new varieties has already been touched on. Other types of research are such that a large part must be carried on by experiment stations which have a continuing program. Much has been done in securing observational information by Association members themselves but some problems are such that they must be continued over a long period of time and set up with adequate checks and provision for securing significant data. Otherwise the results are of no real value. Granted we need all the sound observational experience that all the members can bring to our problems, there are still aspects of culture of northern nut trees that need continuing program of scientific research.
Fortunately, much of the cultural information secured with nut crops of economic value is directly applicable to northern nut trees. This is true of the work with northwestern filberts, western walnuts, southern pecans and even the tung industry. There comes a point, however, when information thus gained needs to be checked under the specific conditions where the crops are grown and very little research has been done in the northern states where the hardy nuts are important.
Of special importance to the northern nut growers is the control of diseases and insects. At the present time the bunch disease of walnuts is becoming increasingly more troublesome and very little is known as to how this is spread or how it may be controlled. In my own filbert planting, the hazel bud mite during past years has made the crop practically a failure. Little apparently is known as to the life history of this insect or when miticides might be applied. Examples such as the bunch disease and mite damage are multiplied many times with other diseases of local or regional importance. In my thinking our best hope for getting something done is to encourage the Departments of Entomology and Plant Pathology in the experiment stations to take up these disease and insect problems, which might be attacked by graduate students as thesis subjects, even though the economic importance is not great.
As I see the situation of the Association, there is need for its members to produce more nuts of better quality. Nothing intrigues the interest of potential members as much as actually seeing and tasting locally grown samples of nuts of superior varieties. On several occasions I have tried to assemble collections of nuts for exhibit or to buy them for one purpose or another and found great difficulty in finding sources of supply. This was particularly true in the fall of 1951 when we were trying to assemble nuts for "The Things of Science" project. We wanted very much to secure Carpathian walnuts that could be sent out and used for seed purposes. There was no source to which we could turn. In several possible sources of supply, husk maggots had so infested the crop that the nuts were discolored and unattractive. It might have been possible to secure enough black walnuts to include in the kit but the problem of state quarantines against the bunch disease could not be easily adjusted.
Finally I believe the Northern Nut Growers Association is doing a very significant work. Our emphasis at the present time at least might very well be on nut growing as a hobby and for conservation, for better shade trees and for better living on the farms and homesteads rather than to emphasize the commercial angles. This will come in time if it can really be demonstrated that growing northern nut trees is a profitable venture. In these days of job specialization everyone needs a hobby and an outlet for special interests. I know of few other fields of endeavor for those who like growing things than the rewards that are to be found in the growing of hardy nut trees.
MONDAY AFTERNOON SESSION
The Monday afternoon session was convened at one o'clock p.m.
PRESIDENT MacDANIELS: The afternoon session will please be in order.
The first paper this afternoon will be, "The Future of Your Nut
Planting," Mr. W. F. Sonnemann, Vandalia, Illinois.
The Future of Your Nut Planting
W. F. SONNEMANN, Vandalia, Ill.
Ladies and gentlemen, it is a great pleasure to appear before the Northern Nut Growers Association. I am just a sprout as far as nut growing is concerned, when we consider the age of some of our old hickory nut trees.
About 25 years ago, I became interested in nut growing and, in particular, the river-bottom hickory nut tree. Then we had so many nut trees growing in the bottom that we never thought of trying to plant a tree or look after one. People could gather all the nuts they wanted and often the trees were cut just to get the nuts. They'd lay a stick of dynamite at the base of the tree to shake the nuts off.
After a few years of that, I thought we might do something to save the nut trees for the future generations. That's when I first started to plant some nuts. Incidentally, I made a big mistake, by not joining the Northern Nut Growers Association.
Naturally, I wanted the largest pecan I could find. I went to the St. Louis market and bought and planted nice Papershell pecans—very nice pecans, but the trees do not mature their crop. Mr. McDaniel and I tried to top-work them, but that's a big job. Had I joined the Northern Nut Growers Association, I could have avoided a lot of those mistakes.
There are some things that I found out in practicing law that can very well apply to nut growing. If you will pardon the reference to personal experience, I can bring forth to you about four situations. One, a good, close friend of mine had a vacant lot close to his home. He had been planting nut trees and papaw trees and persimmon trees for years. On this vacant lot he had a 25-year-old Busch walnut growing back on the alley, on the lawn was a beautiful Japanese flowering cherry, and there were two pecan trees in the yard proper. He sold the lot to a neighbor whose wife was just crazy about flowers, little dreaming that those trees would ever be cut down. I don't believe the ink of the recorder had been cooled or dried before that English walnut was cut down, the Japanese cherry grubbed out of the front lawn, and one of the pecan trees was cut. It just about broke the old owner's heart, and all he could say was, "I am just disappointed in my neighbors." And now there is a house being erected there, and the pecan tree that was 12 inches in diameter was cut. That could have been prevented, had this man given thought to the future.
Another man, named Hagen, who was instrumental in getting me interested in nut growing, had a nice group of river-bottom shellbark trees growing in his field. One of these has been propagated and named the Hagen, and although it isn't a good cracking quality, it's a very large nut.
A pipe line was laid close to that field, and this man had the fore-*sight to put a clause in this pipe-line right of way which gave him the protection of collecting adequate damages for the destruction of the trees. Didn't even need a lawyer, which is something bad for the law business. It is a suggestion, that when a pipe line, or telephone company is buying a right of way, it is possible to protect your interests in valuable trees.
Another instance of protecting nut trees was when the new U. S. Highway 40 was built across Illinois. I had the job of condemning the right of way and when the engineer and I were out walking over it we noticed a fine group of hickory nut trees on the hillside. I remarked what a nice group of trees it was. He said, "Yes, that's going to be a borrow pit up there." I said, "You mean they are going to destroy those trees?" He said, "Yes, dirt from this borrow pit will make the fill across this bottom."
I said, "Why can't we get the dirt somewhere else? Dirt is dirt."
And the engineer said, "Well, that's the plans." We had a little contrariness there, and I had to threaten to drop the case as far as that tract of land was concerned. If you fight long enough and hard enough in such cases you may find some other person who is interested in nut trees. We did; we found an engineer higher up, and that group of hickory trees is now a picnic area. They used a borrow pit somewhere else, and it gives me a great pleasure to drive past that group of hickory trees and see them still standing there. In the fall of the year you'd be surprised at the number of people at that picnic area, and they keep those hickory nuts picked up clean as fast as they fall.
In our county hospital just started they happened to select a piece of ground I own an interest in for a county hospital. On that are some good hickory nut trees. I told them they'd never get the land until they made some arrangements in regard to those nut trees. The engineer that designed that hospital must have had some sense, because they are building a canopy around one of the trees adjacent to that hospital, and have arranged to cut only one scrub oak. The other trees will be mentioned in the deed with restrictive covenants to protect them.
If you sign anything a company gives you, you are liable to have anything cut on your land. Remember the saying that "the big print gives it to you and the fine print takes it away." And it's the fine print you want to watch in all your right of ways or in your condemnation proceedings.
I know a man who had almost 160 acres of river-bottom hickories. During his lifetime he was very careful about those trees. He would cut the brush around the trees and harvest those hickory nuts as if it was a crop of corn or beans. Upon his death his children were scattered over the various states. They didn't care anything for this hickory grove. It's been cut. Now there is a bulldozer in there trying to clean out those hickory stumps. They are not making much progress. All you now have in that farm is 160 acres of old tree stumps, wild honey-suckle vines, poison ivy and poison oak, and even a coon hunter gripes when he has to take his dogs through there on a coon hunt. Those heirs care nothing about it.
In selling land it doesn't make any difference whether it's a sale to a neighbor, or to a friend or a stranger, you should protect any trees that you have growing upon that land by what we term a covenant running with the land, and that means if a deed is made it will provide that certain trees shall not be cut within a certain period of time. In one case where I am forced to sell some land I am protecting the trees for 10 years.
Each of these situations requires research under your own state laws. I had hoped to be able to tell you something definite and precise as to each situation, but when I considered the membership in the Northern Nut Growers, the many states it covers and the great difference in the state laws, it's just impossible to lay your hand upon one set of facts that governs. You should consult your attorney who is dealing with your transactions and tell him specifically what you have in mind and what you want to protect. He will know whether your state recognizes covenants running with your land and what provision can be made to protect trees that you want to save or secure damages.
Remember, in any transaction, if it is not in the written instrument that you sign, it's just an oral agreement that you make on the side, and it doesn't mean a thing. It has to be in the paper that you sign.
As I mentioned briefly, in what they call "eminent domain", the state has a right to take property for public use. The only thing you can do there is just get your head square and fight, and if you are stubborn enough, you may find someone in the organization that you are dealing with who has some interest in trees. They may not be members of the Northern Nut Growers Association or any tree association, but there are some people who appreciate trees and who do realize how long it takes to have a nice pecan tree or nice hickory nut tree growing.
If they call you contrary, that you won't give in to anything, let them call you contrary, let them call you nuts, but you can protect your trees and make sure that their future is secure.
What will happen to your trees after you are dead? Each individual's situation has to be considered separately. In many states you can provide by will to whom you want your nut planting to go, or you can, by making a trust, give the trees to trustees with certain powers and duties to care for and manage them for a period of time or perpetually, depending on the laws of your state. Usually it is limited to the life of some person or 21 years. In that length of time if your heirs or the person you desire these trees to go to have not educated themselves to the value of the tree, then the planting will be lost anyway.
In all of these cases and all the transactions that you make, if you value your trees—and you surely do when you will carry water for them and plant them and dig that large hole for those roots—it is worth while to look after them during the trees' lifetime, not your own lifetime. And if you will consult with your attorney, particularly mention those trees to him and just exactly what your ideas are, I think you will be assured that you will have a future for nut trees.
PRESIDENT MacDANIELS: Thank you, Mr. Sonnemann.
Are there any questions you wish to ask on this subject. Here is a chance to get free legal advice on the spot. That's unusual.
DR. GRAVATT: There is one point I'd like to bring out, backing up what the gentleman just said. You know we introduced back in 1928 to 1936 very large numbers of Chinese and Japanese chestnuts. Most of them went out to state forestry departments and such; somewhere around a half million trees. We have had some very valuable cooperative orchard plantings, which have been lost because something happened to the man, he moved away, sold his property, or died. With these gentlemen who have passed away, experimental orchard plantings and other trees were part of their lives, but their children, or whoever inherited the property, had no interest in continuing the work.
We have had the same experience with some agricultural experiment stations where one of the horticulturists is interested in the plantings, but has moved away, and we have lost our plantings.
PRESIDENT MacDANIELS: Thank you, Dr. Gravatt. Mr. Becker, do you wish to say something about the Reed Memorial?
MR. BECKER: This is just a word of appreciation to a number of the
Northern Nut Growers members who have helped out with the C. A. Reed
Memorial.
When we organized the Michigan Nut Growers Association last January it was Professor O'Rourke's idea to have a memorial at Mr. Reed's home town, which is Howell, Michigan. With Mrs. Reed's approval we planned as our first project, planting a nut tree with a suitable plaque in memory of the late Dr. Reed.
As a followup, we issued a little bulletin asking for contributions toward the memorial. We sent these out to people who knew Mr. Reed, many of whom are among this group.
Response has been gratifying and we now have approximately $95 toward the tablet. On Arbor Day a Michigan variety of shagbark hickory called the Abscoda was planted at Howell on the library grounds. The services were conducted with the cooperation of the Michigan State College and the Livingston County garden group. This is a word of appreciation and also to explain what we have done. Thank you. (Applause.)
PRESIDENT MacDANIELS: We will go on to the next paper, "The Value of a
Tree," Ferdinand Bolten, Linton, Indiana. Mr. Bolton. (Applause.)
MR. BOLTEN: Members of the Northern Nut Growers Association and ladies and gentlemen: I am just a farmer. I am not a speech-maker, like the lawyer here who makes his living talking. I make my living farming, and I have some ideas, views that I'd like to bring before you.
The Value of a Tree
FERD BOLTEN, Linton, Ind.
Members of the Northern Nut Growers Association, ladies, and gentlemen. It may be a little unusual for a fruit grower and farmer to be on this program; however, I have lived a lifetime working with trees on the same farm I was born on sixty-six years ago last May. We have one hundred acres of orchard, several varieties of nut trees, including English walnut, pecans, hybrid pecans or hicans, hickories, filberts, hazelnuts, heart nuts, butternuts, black walnuts; also, persimmons, pawpaws, hybrid oaks and many of the native forest trees. In operating a farm this size, you naturally get a lot of experience and headaches. A very good friend of mine told me a joke that I think fits in with my farm very well. He said a fruit grower delivered a load of apples to the insane asylum. One of the inmates was helping unload the apples. The inmate kept talking about apples, so the grower asked him if he was ever on a fruit farm. The inmate replied that he was before he came to the asylum and, in return, asked the grower if he had ever been in the asylum. The grower replied that he had not. Then the inmate said, "Mr., I have been both places, and I can tell you something. It is a lot nicer here than it is on a fruit farm".
My subject is,
THE VALUE OF A TREE
A tree out of its natural habitat sometimes becomes worthless. As an extreme example, the orange tree in Indiana has no commercial value and the apple tree in Florida has no commercial value. Therefore, it seems that we should, in Indiana, endeavor to develop better trees in the trees which are at home here. This includes the native hickory and the black walnut, hazels, filberts and the pecans in Southern Indiana. Personally, I am spending quite a bit of time with the Crath Carpathian English or Persian Walnut. Last winter, I lost seven out of fifty trees from some cause, after they had gone through the winter of 1950 and 1951, at a temperature of nineteen below zero without injury. It may have been they were caught last fall by a hard freeze in full foliage, early before the apples were all picked; and, again, it may be blight. I hope not. But this I do know, the hickory and black walnut in their natural habitat were not injured.
I wonder why hickories are so erratic in their bearing habits. Could it be the winter rest period? For example, the peach has to have from seven hundred hours, in some varieties, to twelve hundred hours, in others, of below forty-five degrees temperature, or they will not set a good crop of fruit. The value of a variety of peach in Georgia sometimes is determined by the number of hours of rest period below forty-five degrees that the variety has to have. It has happened that the same variety of peach has produced a good crop in Northern Georgia and a poor crop in Southern Georgia. Where the winter was not as cold in Indiana we never lose crops from the lack of enough cold weather; we lose them from sub-zero temperatures. So you see, the value of a variety in Georgia is different to Indiana.
The value of a tree may be in the wood or in the food its produces, or its beauty in winter. Many a picture is taken of evergreens covered with snow. Its value may be its beauty in summer, or the coloring of its leaves in the fall. There is also a sentimental value; a limb that is just right for a child's swing, the Constitutional Elm at Corydon, or the Harrison Oak at North Bend, Ohio. They have a historical value and are visited by many people.
A man said to me some time ago, "I wonder why God made the hicans the cross between the pecans and the hickory?" There may be a valuable nut tree show up in the second or third generation of the hybrid trees when certain characteristics begin to revert to the parent trees. I have on my farm some hybrid oaks grafted, and am very anxious to see them produce acorns so I can plant them and watch the results. This hybrid originated in the Greene and Sullivan County Forest in Indiana, and is called the Carpenter Oak after Mr. Carpenter, the district forester. It is, apparently, a cross between the shingle oak and the pin oak because it is comparable with both of them.
The value of a tree is not always the one that wins first prize in the show. The best plate of nuts in the show may not be from the most valuable tree, because it may be biennial in bearing habits, it may be a shy bearer, it may be an early bloomer and subject to frost. My most productive Crath Carpathian tree is not the best walnut and would not get anywhere in the show, but it is hardy, blooms late, and is productive; so its value is in these traits. The number of chromosomes in the Crath Carpathian walnut may be different. There is quite a difference in the size of nuts produced on individual trees. This indicates that there may be a difference in chromosome count. If this is true, it will be a great help in improving the size of the nuts produced. It may be of value in pollination. The triploid apple needs to be pollinated by the diploid variety. By setting them close together, you get a much better set of fruit.
Sometimes I think trees are as temperamental as people. Some trees, especially the apple, lose their value because they are subject to certain diseases. Some are susceptible to scab, blight, codling moth, rots, blotch, and other diseases, to a point where they become worthless as commercial varieties. The honey locust has been considered one of the trees on farms to be destroyed, because it was thought to be worthless. Now, its value is being found in the correcting of sugar deficiency in dairy cattle. The pods of the honey locust are one of the best foods to correct sugar deficiency and cattle like them and eat them freely. I have on my farm a thornless honey locust that produced ten bushels of pods one year. The honey locust is also a legume and produces nitrogen which, in turn, is used by the pasture grasses and makes more pasture for the cattle.
The mulberry tree that ripens when cherries are ripe has a value in the fact that every mulberry eaten by a bird saves a cherry and the birds are valuable because they destroy insects that cause the worms in cherries.
After observing trees for years, I am convinced that there are certain strains or families of trees in the forest that have outstanding traits. Those traits in growth might be dwarfs or they may be giants; they may have short lives or long lives, like different varieties of apples. The fruit or seeds may be large or small. I believe as reforestation progresses there will be certain trees located which have value as seed trees and which will improve the forest equal to the improvement in livestock on the farms today. The razor back hog that roamed the forest is gone and has been replaced by animals much improved; yet, the forest in which it roamed is the same. Now we are turning to man made forests and a chance to improve them by selecting the more valuable trees for our source of seed. In the native hickory and black walnut, there is a great need for more interest in searching for and preserving the most valuable trees for their cracking quality, flavor, and productivity. There have been and are now, nut trees on farms that were valuable trees, but were known only to the owner and the small boys of the community. These trees should have been preserved for posterity, but many of them are lost forever.
In forestry, a tree's value may be in its ability to re-seed itself. In the kinds of pine, the Virginia pine is one of the best, and also, one of the youngest to produce seed cones. I have counted twenty-five cones on a five year old Virginia Pine tree. In forestry, the red cedar is good to re-seed itself in the area in which it grows. The maple ash, cotton wood, and poplar also grow freely from nature's seeding.
Every tree that grows has a value. The leaves help purify the air; the persimmon and the tree with a wild grapevine are food for wild life. The old hollow tree is a refuge for the coon and o'possum and other wild life. I have a hollow white oak on my farm I let stand because a family of squirrels is raised in it every year. I also have a bee tree and the bees help pollinate my fruit trees so they produce better. A world without trees would be a desolate place. The value of a park is in its trees.
I have spoken of the value of trees for the preservation of wild life, but how do trees affect the life of man and how does man affect tree life? Man is the builder or destroyer of tree life; although the tree is the oldest living thing in plant or animal life, man is master over trees. A man came into my farm office one day and said, "Everything in this room either grew from the earth or was mined from the earth." How about everything in this room? The furniture, the clothing you wear, the ring on your finger, the glass in the windows, etc.? Let us think for a minute, what are the things of the greatest value in this room? We have an organization, The Northern Nut Growers Association. It did not grow from the earth, there is knowledge of science here, there are doctors' degrees (I wish I had one), there is ambition, honesty, love, pride, and patriotism. Man's knowledge is the key. What he leaves alone or what he destroys. So the greatest value is man's knowledge. After all, the greatest values are the things that come from the minds and the hearts of men. By man's efforts, we find or develop these valuable trees.
The value of a home is increased by trees. The love of trees and the pride in owning a home is hard to separate. The privilege in America to own a home and plant a tree on your own ground is of great value. It has been said that he, who plants a tree, is truly a servant of God. I sometimes wonder if this great value of the privilege of owning a piece of ground and building a home and planting a tree is in danger of being lost under the present creeping grip of socialism and communism. This privilege of planting and owning a tree is of greater value than any tree, and we must not lose this valuable inheritance in America.
PRESIDENT MacDANIELS: Mr. Magill, are you all set with your program?
MR. MAGILL: Yes, sir. This is to be a discussion of "Methods of Getting
Better Annual Crops on Black Walnut—A symposium led by W. W. Magill
(Kentucky)—Discussion by a panel made up of W. G. Tatum, Spencer Chase,
W. B. Ward and Mr. Schlagenbusch." Will those men come here? We will get
started.
My business in life is Extension peddler down in Kentucky, working on fruits and nuts and berries, and naturally that takes me into a good many counties. We have 120, and I have been in all of them. Some places didn't have anything, so no reason to go back. But I pick up a lot of conversation, people give you ideas and things to think about.
We were talking about the conditions of the world—everybody's got a good job and plenty of money and biggest incomes that the country has ever known. That's true, but if you take down in the hills and hollows into some places that I go and you take the financial status of certain of those families, it's not measured in thousands of dollars, some cases not hardly measured in hundreds of dollars. It's measured in terms of gratuities and things to eat and not measured by greenbacks, and the families don't pay income tax.
Last fall I was out on a farm in the foothills some 70 miles from Lexington, in a place that most of you folks wouldn't want to live in and call home, a little farm, probably 16 acres, with a widow lady probably 65 years old, living there with her daughter. And among other things, she said, "Mr. Magill, I understand that you are supposed to know something about nuts. See that tree standing right out there?" She says, "I will give you a $20 bill if you will tell me how to make that nut tree bear annual crops."
Well, I was a little bit surprised. I listened, and I got to asking her questions. Some member of the family had gone to Chicago years ago, and she knew about all the black walnut packing firms in Kentucky. This relative had worked in the market, and had indicated she could get a dollar a pound for all the nut meats she would pick out and send to this relative in Chicago. And that nut tree meant about 30 to 35 dollars a year when it had a crop but only bore every other year.
Well, that drove home just a little more to me than ever before the question of why certain nut trees bore and others didn't bear. To that lady there it meant $30 the year it bore and no income from that tree on the year it didn't bear. And she stood there beside the home and pointed out other trees that bore regularly. And she said, "Why do they bear regular crops and this good tree that makes so many fine, big kernels bears every other year?" That's a challenge I am throwing out to this audience today to all the members on this panel.
I am hoping that Pappy Ward or Friend Chase will answer that question completely. The thing I have in mind, is that in a group like we have here today, as many nuts as we have got here, if we think about this question and talk to the folks back home, I believe in a year or two we can have worked out and have printed in the records of the report some pretty reasonable answers as to why nut trees don't bear, or why they bear heavy crops on certain years and are off certain years.
Mr. Ward, I know you have observed this over a period of years. What, in your opinion, is the one factor that is more responsible for this alternate bearing of black walnuts?
Why Black Walnuts Fail to Bear Satisfactory Crops
W. B. WARD, Department of Horticulture, Purdue University, Lafayette,
Ind.
When man or nature, and sometimes both, change the natural habits of a tree, most anything can happen. There are years when the black walnut sets very few fruits either on the seedling trees or trees of named varieties. Some few trees have alternate years of production, while other trees bear annually and some not at all. Good results and good crops may be expected only when several factors are normal and conditions favorable. After twenty years of keeping records and observations on nut trees and through correspondence with other growers, I consider the main reason for crop failure or light production to be climatic conditions and the weather for an entire year.
The black walnut produces a pistillate flower at the end of the present season's growth. The staminate flowers, or catkins, come from last year's wood. Good growing conditions are desirable for wood growth and fruit bud formation and any retarding of growth the previous season means little or no production. Winter injury to wood and bud, diseases or insects attacking the foliage, soil moisture, and summer temperatures will lower tree vitality. There are times when strong vigorous trees fail to fruit which could be due to a high or low carbohydrate-nitrogen balance. Soil type, plant food, age of tree, and location will have some influence on annual or even biennial production but yet are not the all important reasons for light crops.
The pollen of the black walnut is mostly wind borne as few insects ever visit the flowers and pollination is dependent on wind borne pollen. Trees planted in groups and close together are generally more productive than trees planted in orchard rows even as close as 40' by 40'. When the weather is cold and rainy during bloom, one should not expect much of a crop.
The staminate flowers opened early in Indiana the years of 1950, 1951, and 1952. The weather was more or less ideal during the time the catkins had elongated and about ready to shed pollen. This warm spell was followed by a fairly cool weather and considerable rain, which delayed the opening of the pistillate flowers, consequently the pollen dried and was lost before the pistil was receptive.
The few walnut trees in the University plantation have always had the best of care. The trees have been mulched, fertilized (both through root and leaf feedings), sprayed, cultivated and seeded to grass with the grass clipped. The trees are some distance away from other seedling walnuts and a bit off the beaten path of the right direction of the spring winds. The varieties are Ohio, Stambaugh, Stabler, Rohwer, and Thomas. When the spring weather is balmy at flowering time, the trees bear a respectable crop but let the weather change to cool and moist and then that is the time one begins to think about calling up the sawmill to see if there is any need for some good walnut logs.
MR. MAGILL: That's a mighty good discussion. I see Mr. Ward has been observing walnut trees closer than I assumed he had.
Mr. Chase, I know you have seen a lot of things in Tennessee that you are not going to tell us about, but I suggest that you discuss some of the things you have observed about walnut trees bearing anywhere.
MR. CHASE: Alternate bearing has been a problem with fruits and nuts since time immemorial. I know a tremendous amount of work has been done with the apple, which has a definite biennial bearing habit. There have been all sorts of things tried to make it bear annual crops, and as far as I know, there has not been anything effective developed along that line. Of course, there are varieties of apples that tend to bear annual crops.
As Mr. Ward brought out—he took all my thunder, so I don't have much to say—a tree may set a heavy crop of nuts one year because frost or poor pollination the year before destroyed the crop so that a large amount of carbohydrates were built up in the tree. Now, the tree in producing a heavy crop of well filled nuts utilizes every bit of carbohydrates it has stored and can manufacture. While it is doing this the terminal bud is being formed for next year's crop, and if there isn't a sufficient amount of carbohydrates in the tree at that critical period, there is not likely to be a flower bud formed.
This is not limited just to walnuts, but occurs with nearly all fruits and nuts, with the possible exception of the chestnut.
We made a study which was reported in the 1946 report by Mr. Zarger in which he reported the bearing habits of some 135 trees over a 10-year period, and there were definite bearing cycles, or bearing habits. It was not always an on year followed by an off year, but possibly two years in a row, then nothing. There were some trees that went three years without a crop, then a crop. Very few, however, had annual crops, and the annual crops were heavy or moderately heavy, followed by what we consider a light crop.
These trees were scattered through seven states and, of course, conditions were not the same. They were all seedling trees, but careful records were kept on the bearing habits. There was a group of trees that could not be classified into any definite bearing habit. In those instances we suspected unfavorable weather at pollination time, but as a general rule, in our section I don't believe we are concerned with that factor.
The Thomas, which we can watch carefully in a nearby orchard, is definitely on one year and off the next. Quite a few are on one year and off two years. We haven't found any way to make that an annual crop, because when it sets a crop, it sets a bumper crop, and there is simply not enough food in the tree to set a sufficient number of fruit buds for the following year's crop. I am sure that a lot of you folks have observed this, and I think, Mr. Magill, that you might sound out some of them.
MR. MAGILL: Going back to an observation I made as a kid, money didn't grow in bushes around our place, and back in those days you could go out and kill ten rabbits and sell them for 8 cents apiece, and if you only used 4 cents apiece for ammunition, you have made 40 cents off of the deal and had $20 worth of fun, and that was a good day's work. You remember those days, Pappy? Back in those same times, I used to get money out of hauling black walnuts to an old corn sheller and having people who didn't have an interest in the corn sheller sell them for 50 cents a bushel. That was also pin money. Come in mighty useful.
We had a certain group of trees on the farm I was raised on that bore every other year, and I can think of two fields where we rearranged the fences in such a way as to make pasture fields out of them, and two of those trees were where 15 or 20 cattle pastured. These were the only shade trees, and naturally they manured those trees. And I recall for a few years I was getting annual crops from them. Apparently they got something supplied by cattle that they didn't have otherwise. Others in the foothills of Kentucky, have come to the same conclusion.
I know a man who has pecan holdings in Alabama. He told me up to the time he got the farm the trees had a few blooms but wouldn't set pecans. He applied 15 mineral elements and claims to have got results from it. I have talked to at least three people in my travelling around who tried the same treatment on pecans, one in Georgia, one in Alabama and one in Mississippi. They reported that they had improved yield on pecans by using complete mineral fertilizer. That's in addition to nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium.
I am foolish enough to think that that nice, young orchard of Mrs. Weber's would make an excellent place to try it. I understand that the trees are not behaving as well as they should. I'd like for Ford Wilkinson to be made chairman of a committee to see that they are fertilized according to some kind of a schedule that could be worked out and do some observing. That is one of the few places I know of in the several states that would be as adequately laid out. I'd like to see a complete fertilizer including nine or ten mineral elements used.
I don't mean spend a lot of money, but you can do a lot of observing for relatively few dollars. I just throw that out as a hint.
I would like to open up this discussion. Mr. Bolten talked a while ago about things he was growing out of the ground, or out of minerals. Everything comes from the ground, and I reckon you'd say this Northern Nut Growers Association is a little like Topsy, it just developed, as the fellow about the weeds. He said they weren't created, they just come all at once. Now I believe that out of this Northern Nut Growers assembly here that we have got some keen observers that might have something on their minds they want to tell us about. Who wants to speak first?
MR. CALDWELL: This is just an observation I am throwing out for the benefit of those who are here. I spent some time in China, and I was interested in the fact that their walnuts there produced yearly crops. In trying to find out why they produced yearly crops, I also discovered that their persimmons, their plums and their peaches did the same thing. The reason for that apparently goes back to their mythology. They believe in signs and doing certain things according to certain seasons of the year, and one of the things that they did was to gather together in the dark of the moon on one particular night at a certain time and beat the living daylights out of these trees with big bamboo clubs. I wouldn't suggest that people here do that, but it's been known to foresters quite a while that by transplanting or severely pruning or girdling trees that you could produce fruits on these trees the following year. Apparently the Chinese so injured the cambium during the severe beating that they have caused that wound stimulus to induce the formation of flower buds for the following year. By so doing in their English or Persian walnuts they did have yearly crops. I have seen this myself, and I checked back to see why. Perhaps they could explain it. The only explanation we made was not fertilizing, but in the wounding of the cambium. Now, perhaps there could be something done of that nature for walnuts, but I wouldn't suggest getting around and beating the trees up.
MR. MAGILL: In that connection, one man in Kentucky got the same answer. He said about five years ago a cyclone came through there and blew the chimney off the house and uprooted a number of apple trees and leaned over three walnut trees, and he said they have borne five crops in succession. Now, this is the same story that you have got there.
MR. STOKE: I'd just like to remark that I think that's a sort of negative approach. I noticed a boy who had an apple tree that was about to die. He girdled it and got a tremendous crop of blossom. You probably have secured the same results. That is one of Nature's ways to perpetuate itself. But I think there a constructive angle in those trees that respond to nitrogenous fertilizer or manure. I believe the secret, if there is a secret, is that a tree in bearing a crop exhausts itself more or less. It recuperates the following year and then is ready to bear another crop. And the way to meet that situation is to fertilize heavily, especially with nitrogen, the season of the heavy crop so that you will have not only enough leaf growth to produce that crop, but to build up nutrients the following year. I believe that will help break the cycle and establish more regularity.
Some trees do that themselves; that is, they will bear a moderate crop every year. I have the Land walnut at home. It bears every year. Certain chestnuts will bear every year, not excessive crops, but Hobson bears a pretty good crop every year. I believe the secret of breaking that on-and-off cycle is to fertilize heavily the year of production not the year of non-production. If you apply nitrogen on the off year you produce perhaps an excess of wood growth that year and overbearing the following year.
MR. MAGILL: Referring to apples, any of you apple growers well know that the Golden Delicious and York Imperial grow crops in alternate years. Now, you come along with hormone sprays and take half or two-thirds of the young fruits off soon after the trees blossom and throw them into regular production. That's the same thing that you are talking about, Mr. Stoke. I never heard of anybody thinning walnuts. I don't know whether they do or not. A lot of things I don't know, but I don't know of anybody ever thinning walnuts, except squirrels.
MR. WARD: Last year a lady from Kokomo, Indiana, wrote me that she had a very fine walnut tree growing near Mr. Bolten's place in Greene County, and as far as she could remember that tree had borne an annual crop for the past 70 years. I wrote to Mr. Bolten asking him to investigate. If I remember correctly, these trees were grown in the poorest possible place. Is that right, Mr. Bolten?
MR. BOLTEN: Yes.
MR. WARD: There were two or three trees right close together that had a nice crop and the ground was covered with a lot of nice nuts which Mr. Bolten thought worth propagating, and he has a tree already started.
We have other varieties that we call the Saul, the Goose Creek and the Alley, which are all seedlings and which have produced almost every year with about the same size of crop.
In our own planting, at the University, we have tried a lot of things without telling anybody about it. Every once in a while the boys mow the orchard, and have bruised and barked a lot of these trees with no effect whatever on bearing. We have time and time again taken the Stambaugh, Ohio, Thomas, Stabler, and Aurora and have given them a good shot of fertilizer in the spring after a rain, and have produced wonderful growth in all of those years but still had only a light crop.
A few years ago some of the boys were spraying the apple orchard with Nu-Green and Urea at the rate of 5 pounds to 100 gallons of water, and had a little extra. They said, "Well, we don't like Ward's nut trees over there, we will put this stuff on them, and if it kills them, that's all right, and if they live, that's all right, too." They gave them some feeding throughout the summer and we haven't found any different results.
MR. STOKE: May I say just one more thing to clarify my suggestion? I was assuming that potash and phosphate were present in sufficient quantity. What I wanted was leaf growth to store up energy and nutrients for the following year and to apply that on the year of heavy crop, so besides maturing the crop, it will provide that leaf growth, and not in the year of no crop.
MR. WARD: We have tried that both ways, and going back, Mr. Stoke, again to the lack of pollination, it seems like both the pistillate and staminate flowers are there, but they just don't set a crop of fruit.
MR. STOKE: One thing more I wanted to say, and it slipped my mind. We know any tree that grows too rapidly will not produce seed nor fruit, and excess nitrogen on apple or walnut or anything else will not cause the formation of fruit buds, but the normal amount is necessary for the formation of buds.
MR. MCDANIEL: We have even got alternate bearing on persimmons in Urbana now. Trees that bore extremely heavily didn't bloom this year.
MR. MAGILL: We hill-billies have been taking a pass at that. I wonder if Dr. Slate couldn't give us some scientific facts about this. How about it, Slate?
DR. SLATE: Mr. Caldwell's remarks about the beating of the walnut trees in China reminds me of an ancient saying that, "A dog, a woman, a walnut tree, the more you beat them the better they be."
MR. DAVIDSON: One of my seedlings began to bear seven years ago, and has borne steadily every year exceptionally large crops. It never failed until this year, and the only explanation that I can give is that just as the bloom was incepted we had continuous rains. There was no pollination of that tree, whereas other trees that were receptive at other times are pretty well filled.
Out of two or three thousand trees you will find some exceptional ones. I have some that bear fairly good crops but do not fill. Walnut trees are just as different from each other as are apple trees. There are some things you can't do anything about at all, and weather is one of the things. One shouldn't be too much mystified by an occasional failure, because it may be due to continuous rains during the period of pollination and when they are receptive.
PRESIDENT MacDANIELS: This matter of alternate bearing is one that has plagued the pomologist for a great many years, and one in which we made little progress, with apples for example, until with hormone sprays the trees could be thinned very early in the year. Any thinning done after the fruit was the size of your thumb was too late. However, now that the fruit can be thinned when it is very young, real progress is being made in securing annual bearing on varieties that previously were a serious problem in alternate bearing.
The failure to fruit is due to many different factors. Some of these are external such as frost and rain at pollen shedding. There is nothing you can do about these. Other factors are internal and determine the formation of fruit buds. If the tree is carrying an exceptionally heavy crop, the chances are it will not have enough of the material which determines the setting of buds to form buds for the following year. With the apples we can do something about this by thinning the crop at the time it blooms. With walnuts, I don't see how we are going to do it. Fertilization is another approach.
Certainly we should make conditions just as favorable as possible for growth and for the development of the buds and by all means control insects and diseases. If you do not have a good leaf surface good crops will not be set the next year. It's a complex problem, but I don't think it is insoluble.
DR. MCKAY: Mr. Chairman, in connection with this matter of annual bearing of black walnut trees we believe that in doing all sorts of things you will not influence the yielding of most of our black walnut varieties. The black walnut, Juglans nigra is probably—some of us think, at least—constituted genetically in such a way that the varieties we have do not yield annual crops simply because they are not constituted that way. I know some of you may disagree with me, but one of the greatest arguments for this idea is the fact that in some of our other nut species we do have varieties that are genetically heavy producers. For instance, we have a selection of Chinese chestnuts right now that will bear annual crops on the poorest soil under any conditions imaginable. You can graft scions of that tree on other stocks and plant them anywhere you choose under differing conditions and it will have a heavy set of burs. It may not fill the nuts, it may not attain the size, but genetically speaking, inherently it is a heavy bearer. Perhaps our black walnut species are inherently not annual producers. This is hard to prove, I admit, because the breeding of the species takes so long that we cannot actually demonstrate it.
We have felt also that the black walnut species as a whole does not have the characteristics of thin shells and good cracking qualities that we want. For this reason we have begun a program of crossing the black walnut with the English or Persian walnut, in order to get the thin shell that we want from the other species. Perhaps the same thing is true in the question of yield and the species as a whole does not have the characteristic of yielding heavy annual crops.
MR. MAGILL: I think we can readily see that we haven't settled this problem but it is time to close the discussion.
PRESIDENT MacDANIELS: The next paper that we have is by H. F. Stoke of Roanoke, Virginia, "Survey on Hickory Varieties." Mr. Stoke is the chairman of our Survey Committee. Last year he brought us very valuable information about walnuts, and this year he is going to talk about the hickories. Mr. Stoke.
MR. STOKE: They delegated the job to the Survey Committee to make a hickory survey for this year, using the different state and provincial and national vice-presidents to collect the data. I am going to read this.
The 1952 Hickory Survey
By the Survey Committee
H. F. STOKE, Chairman
In compiling this report the pecan has been omitted from the list. As it is the most important member of the hickory group it was felt that the national and state pecan associations are far more competent to compile complete and reliable data on the species than is this organization.
The response by our vice-presidents to the questionnaire sent out has been rather disappointing, replies having been received from slightly less than half their number. It is apparent that interest in the hickory is considerably less than in the black walnut, which was surveyed in 1951.
Perhaps the most beloved and widely distributed of the hickories is the shagbark, Carya ovata. It is reported from Massachusetts on the east to southeastern Minnesota, southward to Texas and eastward to the Carolinas where it mingles with and is sometimes confused with the scalybark. In the opinion of many the superb distinctive flavor of its nuts is not equaled by those of any species.
The domain of the Shellbark or Kingnut C. laciniosa lies within the same area but is slightly less extensive. Like the pecan, it is partial to the rich alluvial bottom lands along streams and is seldom found elsewhere. It occurs rarely in Virginia and North Carolina, and there only in the Appalachian area.
The Scalybark or southern Shagbark, C. Carolina septentrionalis, is reported only by Virginia, West Virginia and the Carolinas.
The White Hickory or Mockernut, C. alba, covers the South and is reported as far north as Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana and, rarely, in Michigan. It is found from the Atlantic coast to east Texas.
The widely distributed Bitternut, C. cordiformis, covers virtually the same territory as the shagbark.
The Sweet Pignut, C. glabra, is reported from New Hampshire to Wisconsin and southward to North Carolina. Its south-westward occurrence has not been defined in reports received.
In addition to these better-known species, the Water Hickory, C. aquatica, is reported from Louisiana, and the Black Hickory, C. buckleyi, from Indiana and Texas.
In an unusually full report Indiana lists all of sixteen hickory species and sub-species as appearing in The Flora of Indiana, a book by Mr. Charles Deam, former State Forester. The list follows.
1. C. pecan
2. C. cordiformis
3. C. ovata
3a. C. ovata, var, fraxinifolia
3b. C. ovata, var. nuttali
4. C. laciniosa
5. C. tomentosa (alba)
5a. C. tomentosa var. subcoriacea
6. C. glabra
6a. C. glabra var. megacarpa
7. C. ovalis
7a, b, c. C. ovalis var. odorata
7d. C. ovalis var. obovalis
7e. C. ovalis var. obcordata
8. C. ovalis var. pallida
9. C. ovalis var. buckleyi
Doubtless many sub-species and variants are actually hybrids of obscure ancestry. Virginia has many such.
There is no reason to doubt that the hickories will grow anywhere ecological conditions approximate those of their native habitat. This is true in the Pacific coast states. Mr. Julio Grandjean, of Hillerod, Denmark, reports that there are several white hickories, C. alba or C. tomentosa, growing in the Horsholm Royal Park that were planted about 1790. There is no reason to believe that such northern species as the shellbark and shagbark would not also succeed. He reports winter-killing of pecans from southern sources. Inasmuch as extreme winter temperatures in Denmark are less than in some places where the pecan is grown here, it would appear that the more northern strains should succeed there, though lack of summer heat would prevent the maturing of nuts.
There appears to be much less interest in planting hickories on home grounds than the value of the species justifies. Only five states, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania and West Virginia, indicated any local interest. In each case the shagbark was the preferred species. Apparently we must still depend on the much-abused squirrel for the future of the hickory.
R. E. Hodgson of the Southeast Experiment Station, Waseca, Minn., reports 15 named varieties of hickory under test, but no evaluation of their worth can be made as yet.
Dr. R. T. Dunstan of Greensboro, North Carolina, has also a considerable number of hickory varieties under more advanced test. Results have been highly variable. He finds that Schinnerling has filled poorly; Whitney and Shaul are "Excellent growers and highly satisfactory bearers." Whitney, however, with a kernel of superb quality, cracks poorly and the husk is thick and heavy. Shaul is reported as having a rather thin kernel and cracking poorly, also.
Romig, that has been late in coming into bearing, is described as producing a large, handsome nut of good quality that cracks unusually well. Grainger, good in other respects, has borne light crops as also have Glover and Weschcke. Fox is described as superb in every respect except cracking quality.
Among the hicans, Burton is declared to be outstanding in vigor and health of tree, and production of good regular crops of delicious nuts that crack well.
It is interesting to note that in his extensive hickory experiments Dr.
Dunstan is using pecan stocks. He uses the bark-slot method of grafting
and hot wax compounded of 10 parts resin, 2 parts beeswax and one part
Kieselguhr. Both method and wax he finds highly successful.
Dr. Dunstan also reports a Mahan pecan grafted on a white or mockernut hickory stock that produces heavy crops of well-filled nuts. This is an exceptional performance for this variety.
Mr. Fayette Etter, of Pennsylvania, supports Dr. Dunstan in the use of pecan stocks for hickories. He states that the young trees grow more rapidly in the nursery, transplant better, and grow faster thereafter than when on hickory stocks.
Mr. A. G. Hirschi, of Oklahoma reports that in the hilly "blackjack" country of southeastern Oklahoma the scrub has been cleared away and a 40-acre project of grafting the native hickory (probably white or mockernut) with pecan has been established. The land has been terraced and is cropped with cotton. The results have been so satisfactory that this plot in one year carried off more prizes on pecans than any other entry within the state.
Mr. Harald E. Hammar reports from Louisiana that there has been some grafting of pecan on hickory, species not specified. The older trees show a decided overgrowth of the hickory stock by the more vigorous pecan, in some cases the diameter being almost double above the graft of that below.
In virtually all cases of topworking hickory on pecan, or vice versa, the bark slot graft has been used.
In point of preference of named varieties, Michigan suggests Abscoda,
Ohio suggests Stafford, while Pennsylvania recommends Glover, Goheen,
Whitney and Weschcke, in that order.
In naming the insects and diseases that attack the hickories,
Pennsylvania offers the following rather appalling list:
Nut curculio
Hickory shuckworm
Galls
Spider mites
Twig girdlers
Fall web worm
Pecan phylloxera
Black pecan aphids
Flathead apple borer
Other unnamed borers
Those that know Mr. Etter will understand that this formidable list is due to his excellent powers of observation and his integrity rather than to the likelihood that the state of Pennsylvania is worse plagued with insects than others. Dr. Dunstan lists leaf-spot along with some of those listed above, but adds that none are generally serious. This is corroborated by other reporters.
Wild nuts are generally harvested for home use. Commercial marketing, reported by Pennsylvania, Indiana, West Virginia, Virginia and North Carolina, is in all cases local. Usually the nuts are marketed whole, but occasionally home-picked kernels are sold.
Good stands of second-growth shagbark hickory are reported in
Pennsylvania. Kansas reports limited shellbark and bitternut stands.
West Virginia reports considerable stands of young shagbark and pignut,
while North Carolina reports small stands of mockernut.
The industrial use of hickory reached its height in the horse and buggy days. Nothing equalled its strong, tough wood for the wheels and running gears of horse-drawn vehicles. Old-timers will recall "hoop poles", tall slender young saplings of shagbark hickory that were split and fashioned with the "drawshave" into barrel hoops.
The market for hickory still remains, however. It is universally used for hand tool handles, if obtainable. In the mountains of the South hickory "splints" are still woven into imperishable baskets and chair seats. Louisiana insists it is still the only fuel for roasting barbecue and there is, indeed, no finer wood fuel of any species.
Those propagating hickory trees for sale and distribution should be given every encouragement. They are contributing a real patriotic service. No tree is more characteristically American. Except for a related species in China, it is found nowhere else in the world. In beauty, utility and durability no tree has greater appeal. Who plants a hickory plants for generations unborn.
MR. STOKE: If there are any misstatements, I'd be glad to have them publicly corrected.
PRESIDENT MacDANIELS: Thank you, Mr. Stoke. The comment that you made that there wasn't as much enthusiasm about the hickory as about the black walnut, although true, is not the way I personally feel about it. I have at Ithaca a number of trees of various kinds of nuts, and I think that the enjoyment I get out of the hickories, which we grow, is as great or greater than that from the black walnuts. The Davis hickory is one of the best that matures, the Wilcox—that's an Ohio nut—probably has a bushel and a half of nuts in the shuck this year, and the Kentucky will give a pretty good record. Of about 20 varieties, those are the only ones which amount to anything, and we have a fairly good selection.
There was a good deal said about stocks in Mr. Stoke's discussion. We have a short paper here by Gilbert Smith on his experience with stocks, and I have asked Mr. Chase to read it. Mr. Smith began topworking seedling trees on a side hill many years ago and has trees of good size at the present time.
MR. CHASE: This is a short discussion of several species of hickory which Mr. Smith has used as stocks to graft named varieties.
A Discussion of Hickory Stocks
Gilbert L. Smith, Rt. 2, Millerton, N. Y.
This is a discussion of several species of hickory as stocks on which to graft the named varieties of shagbark, shellbark and hybrid hickories. We have never had any experience grafting pecan as we are too far north for it. This paper is limited to the species with which we have had experience.
SWEET PIGNUT, Carya ovalis
This species will be discussed first because it is the poorest stock of any of the hickory species which we have used. This is probably because it is a tetraploid while the shagbark, shellbark and hybrids are diploids.
We have grafted many of the named varieties of hickory onto pignut stocks, using several thousand scions. We have found only one variety (the Davis shagbark) that will grow on pignut stock. We have heard of one or two others but have never tried them.
Nearly all varieties grow well the first season but fail to leaf out the following spring. They appear to winterkill. Davis has continued to grow on it for over fifteen years but growth is slower than on shagbark or bitternut stocks.
PIGNUT, Carya glabra
I have never been able to positively identify this species of pignut. Pignuts growing here vary considerably in roughness of the bark, some being smooth while others are as rough as the shagbark. In other respects they are essentially the same, all having seven leaflets per leaf. However, I have observed a very few pignut trees having smooth bark and five leaflets per leaf. The leaves are finer and smaller than on the seven leaflet trees.
These may be the glabra species, but if so, grafting results have been no better on these than on the seven leaflet trees.
As nursery stock the pignuts are worthless. However if one has some nice young pignut trees growing where he wants them, it is feasible to graft them to Davis or some other variety which has proven its ability to grow on pignut stocks. It is not advisable to graft hickory trees growing in dense woods.
MOCKERNUT, Carya alba
While the mockernut is also a tetraploid, it is a somewhat better stock than the pignuts, in that more of the named varieties will grow on it and as the mockernut is faster growing than the pignut, such grafts will usually grow faster.
It is of little value as a nursery stock, but if one has young mockernut trees growing where hickory trees are wanted, they would be somewhat better to graft than would pignut trees. One would at least have a larger selection of varieties and the grafts would grow faster.
PECAN, Carya illinoiensis
While we have read many favorable reports on the use of the pecan as a stock on which to graft shagbark, shellbark and hybrid hickories, our own experiences with it have not been very favorable. This may be due to the fact that we have used only two varieties of shagbark on pecan-stocks and may have happened to use two varieties that are not well adapted to pecan.
Pecan seedlings are much faster growing than are shagbark seedlings and for this reason would be valuable as a nursery stock if satisfactory in other respects.
BITTERNUT, Carya cordiformis
All of our experiences with bitternut as a stock, both in the nursery and as young trees growing in permanent locations, have been very favorable.
We have heard reports of grafts failing on bitternut stocks after a few years growth. All such reports have come from regions considerably farther south than our location. It may be that the bitternut does not thrive as well in the South as it does here.
Bitternut seedlings are much faster growing than are shagbark seedlings.
This is of considerable value in the nursery.
SHAGBARK, Carya ovata
The shagbark makes the best stock on which to graft the named varieties of shagbark, shellbark and hybrid hickories. However it has one very serious drawback in that young shagbark seedlings are so very slow growing. It usually takes five or more years to grow a shagbark stock from seed to a size large enough to graft in the nursery row.
However, when shagbark stocks are large enough to be grafted, all of the named varieties we have grafted onto it have grown well.
SHELLBARK, Carya laciniosa
We have never had any experience with shellbark seedlings as stocks, but as it is so similar to the shagbark, I expect that it would make a good stock.
The production of grafted hickory trees is a serious problem in the nursery, taking many years to grow the stocks and the grafted trees are difficult to transplant, resulting in a high rate of mortality.
However, the grafting of young hickory trees growing in a permanent location is not difficult, and such grafts will grow much faster and bear younger than will grafted hickory trees from a nursery.
PRESIDENT MacDANIELS: My experience with bitternut stock with only two varieties, the Strever #1 and the Champigne, has not been good. The grafts have been stunted, the stocks have tended to sprout and make vigorous growth, and the fruiting has been sparse. Neither have I had success with the pecan stock with only three varieties. The trees have been very slow coming into bearing and have made rather stubby growth.
MR. MCDANIEL: I was about to remark that we have had similar experience at Urbana with bitternut stock with pecan and shagbark varieties. It warps the shagbark and very likely those trees won't live long. We have already lost the Weschke hickory grafted on bitternut.
MR. CRAIG: Have you tried hickory on pecan? The pecan is O. K. there.
PRESIDENT MacDANIELS: Tomorrow we are to have a round table on hickory propagation and suggest that further discussion of stocks might be left until then. Has anyone any comments on hickory varieties?
MR. KEPLINGER: (North Central Michigan) I was born and raised in Saginaw County where the Saginaw River is fed by five or six different runs and you have prairie farms. More hickories grow there than any place in the United States—enormous size. We think we have better hickories than anyone.
PRESIDENT MacDANIELS: Why couldn't you send some in for testing? Mr. Becker would be glad to take them. Any other discussion on hickory varieties? How many are growing the Wilcox? (5 hands). How many find it a good variety? (Two). How many have Davis? (Three). The shucks are fairly thin, compared with the Wilcox.
Who else has a variety that is doing very well? We ought to have a hickory show here sometime and see who has the best hickory.
DR. MCKAY: I'd like to ask if anyone has the variety Lingenfelter.
PRESIDENT MacDANIELS: We have it at Ithaca; doesn't mature.
DR. McKAY: We have two varieties at Beltsville that are outstanding as far as bearing is concerned. One is Lingenfelter, which has been a consistent bearer for us for a number of years, and the variety Shaul, that was mentioned in Mr. Stokes' report and has been mentioned here before, is a very good producer.
MR. MCDANIEL: What species is the Shaul, is it ovata or laciniosa?
DR. MCKAY: It's ovata. It's a shagbark, as also is Lingenfelter. The one characteristic that is outstanding with these two varieties with us is the fact that they bear while they are young trees; from the time our trees were as tall as one's head, they have been full of nuts.
MR. MCDANIEL: Have you fruited the Weschke at Beltsville?
DR. MCKAY: No.
PRESIDENT MacDANIELS: How about the Barnes?
MR. STOKE: I have been growing it on mockernut or white hickory. It produces moderate crops and is the one that came into bearing about first on mockernut. In fact, I have several varieties on mockernut that haven't borne yet. It's been on there about 12 years.
PRESIDENT MacDANIELS: The Barnes, with us, has yielded more at a younger age than any other variety, but it never filled. It began early and bore heavy crops, but the season is not long enough or hot enough.
MR. STOKE: In Virginia they fill well, but they are not easily extracted. The shell is rather thin and fills well.
PRESIDENT MacDANIELS: I don't want to prolong this discussion longer than seems profitable.
DR. MCKAY: Did I understand you to mention the variety Schinnerling?
MR. GERARDI: I have got that at home. That's one that's bearing, but if it's that variety I have there, I wouldn't give it yard room.
DR. MCKAY: It is also one of our best. We have three, the Shaul, the Lingenfelter that I mentioned, and the third one is Schinnerling, all three of which are extremely heavy bearers and the three hickory varieties that we are interested in.
MR. GERARDI: How big is that Schinnerling?
DR. MCKAY: It's an average-sized nut.
MR, GERARDI: Big as your thumb?
DR. MCKAY: Oh, yes, about an inch long, I'd say.
MR. BECKER: I was wondering about the Stratford. That's not supposed to be a pure shagbark, but it's the only one we've got, I think, that bears.
PRESIDENT MacDANIELS: I have the Stratford. It grows very well, but it doesn't quite fill. What does it do with you?
MR. SNYDER: It's not been doing well the last year or two. Of course, none of them have for that matter. Used to bear tremendous crops and filled well. I wouldn't say it's the best quality of any tree, but it's easy to graft and bears young.
PRESIDENT MacDANIELS: That's been my experience, that it was a young bearer and bears fairly consistently.
If there is no other discussion, on the hickories, we will close that discussion. We stand adjourned until this evening at 7:20.
Adjournment at 4:30 o'clock, p.m.
MONDAY EVENING SESSION
Called to order at 7:20 p.m.
PRESIDENT MacDANIELS: We will call on Dr. McKay as chairman of the
Nominating Committee to present the slate of officers for the next year.
Dr. McKay.
DR. MCKAY: Mr. Chairman, the Nominating Committee, as you know, is charged with the responsibility of selecting a slate of officers that will be presented to the meeting.
The committee, composed of myself as chairman, Mr. Allaman, Mr. Silvis, Mr. Ford Wilkinson and Mr. Gerardi, have the following slate of officers for next year: For president, Mr. R. B. Best; for vice-president, Mr. George Salzer of Rochester; for secretary, Mr. Spencer Chase; for treasurer, Mr. Carl Prell.
PRESIDENT MacDANIELS: You have heard the report of the Nominating Committee. At this time we will entertain further nominations from the floor, if any.
The only action to be taken now is to accept the report of the
Nominating Committee. Do I hear such a motion?
The motion to accept the report was moved, seconded and carried.
Going on with the program of the evening, are you ready to show the film?
MR. MCDANIEL: The film comes to us from the Northwest Nut Growers now located in Portland, Oregon. They are an organization for marketing filberts, and you will see, "The Filbert Valleys", the title. I haven't seen it myself and don't know exactly what the contents are. We will look at it now and judge for ourselves.
The film, "The Filbert Valleys", was shown.
PRESIDENT MacDANIELS: We appreciate very much your running it.
The next item will be our discussion of filbert varieties and their culture. Mildred Jones, who was to be here, could not come. She telephoned the last minute that she was ill and could not be with us. I have asked George Slate to be the moderator in the discussion, with his panel, D. C. Snyder, Raymond Silvis, A. M. Whitford, Louis Gerardi and H. F. Stoke.
MR. SLATE: I just learned when I arrived here that I was to be on this discussion group, and I learned a few minutes ago that I was to lead it, so I can assure you that this is wholly unrehearsed, and I may have to flounder around a bit before we get things running smoothly.
I thought I might review the variety situation rather briefly. We have done quite a lot of variety testing of filberts at Geneva; in fact, about the only nut cultural work we have done at Geneva has been the filbert project. We started out with about 25 or 30 varieties that we secured from American nurseries, many of them from a firm in Rochester which imported them from Germany. Later we added varieties from England, France and Germany. I picked up nearly all the varieties that I could locate until we had about 120 varieties growing there at Geneva. These were there for some years, and it became evident that many of them were not of great value. Then we had a hard winter in 1933 and 1934, and although it did not kill the trees, most of them were blackhearted and began going back soon after that. However, I felt at that time that I knew enough about the varieties to discard most of them. Many of them were discarded because they had poor nuts, many of them were unproductive, and many of them lacked hardiness of catkins. I laid a great deal of emphasis on the hardiness of catkins in testing the varieties.
Out of that variety test were three varieties which we considered to be most satisfactory of the lot. These were Cosford, an English variety, rather a small nut but very thin-shelled. The catkins were hardy and one of the heavier croppers of the lot. Medium Long, a nut which I believe originated as a seedling in Rochester, was another one, and Italian Red, which later proved to be Gustav's Zellernuss, a German variety, was another.
As a result of that variety test it became evident that varieties from Germany, many of which originated in the colder portions of Germany and Northern Germany, were distinctly more hardy than the varieties that we got from French sources and English sources. In some of the proceedings of the Association published during the '30's I have reported on the different varieties and their hardiness and those varieties that I thought were most valuable. I don't recall the names of many of those German varieties. These three varieties which we consider the best of the lot were turned over to the New York Fruit Testing Association to propagate and distribute, because they were not available from American nurseries. I am not sure how many of them were available from other sources, but they are still available from the Fruit Testing Association.
Then out of that variety test a grading project developed. We got our start from about 500 seedlings that Clarence Reed sent us in the early '30's. We made crosses there at Geneva, using the Rush variety of Corylus americana as the seed parent in many cases. We also made some crosses between Corylus avellana varieties, and with these seedlings from Mr. Reed and seedlings of our own crossing, we have grown about 2,000 filbert seedlings there at Geneva. These have all been evaluated and discarded, except possibly 30 or 35 selections still on hand, some of them being propagated for a second test planting. Stock of one or two has been turned over to the Fruit Testing Association for increase and eventual naming and introduction.
The work of the United States Department of Agriculture was along similar lines. Mr. Reed did not send us all of his seedlings. A number of them were fruited at Beltsville, and from that work at Beltsville I believe two varieties have been named, Reed and Potomac. I am not sure whether they are available yet from commercial sources.
MR. MCDANIEL: Two of them are.
MR. SLATE: Mr. Graham of Ithaca, a long-time member of this Association and very much interested in filberts, had also made some crosses and raised several hundred seedlings. He used the Winkler variety as a seed parent. I believe he raised some seedlings of the Jones hybrids, which would make that material second generation stock from the original cross between Rush and the avellana varieties.
Mr. Graham's planting was in rather a cold area; he had considerable winter killing. Eventually filbert blight got into his planting, and it really cleaned house. There were a very few seedlings in his planting which remained free of filbert blight. I think it is a fairly safe guess to say that they were probably very resistant to blight. So far these have not been propagated to any extent.
There are a few cultural problems. The ones that we have encountered at Geneva have been winter injury, particularly of the catkins, and also some of them have not been as hardy in wood as we would like. We have had no trouble with filbert blight, presumably because we are isolated from the wild hazel, which harbors this blight. Dr. MacDaniels has had trouble with his planting at Ithaca with filbert mite.
With this introduction, which is mostly varieties and breeding, because that seems to be my interest, I'd like to call on some members of the panel to get their experiences. Mr. Snyder raises nut trees in Iowa where winter injury is probably much more serious than we have at Geneva. At Geneva we have a fairly respectable climate and can get a crop of peaches about nine years out of ten. In Iowa they have a lot more sunshine, and I think probably sharper drops of temperature than we have at Geneva. I'd like to have Mr. Snyder tell us what his experiences have been with filbert varieties.
MR. SNYDER: I really didn't know that I was to be on this panel until I got here. I thought I was on the hickory panel. As Mr. Slate says, our climate is more severe that that at Geneva. We can get the very hardiest peaches to bear about two years out of three, and the trees are severely injured in between. So that will give you a little idea as to the climate in that respect.
We made quite a planting at one time, maybe 30 of the Jones hybrids, and they did quite well for several years, and then between the winter-killing and the blight most of them are dead now. The Winkler, of course, is an Iowa nut and was introduced by our people and did very well for a number of years but has backed out on us the last several years, too, I believe due to this same mite trouble that Dr. MacDaniels reports in New York. They just don't bear. The bushes are quite healthy, and we get plenty of catkins, but we don't get any nuts to amount to anything.
We have a little bush of the Mandchurian hazel. It isn't worth mentioning as a nut producer, but it does have very attractive foliage and seems to be entirely healthy, produces perhaps three to five nuts a year on a bush as high as your head. You may be familiar with it. The foliage is very distinct from anything I know. The leaves are truncate at the end, cut off quite square, with just a little point in the middle.
MR. SLATE: I don't have that.
MR. SNYDER: That is standing our conditions all right, and several years ago Mr. Reed sent us what he said at the time were Chinese tree hazels, but later he retracted and said that they were not Chinese tree hazels but they were hybrids of the Chinese tree hazel. There were four of those plants; one of them was a tremendous grower. It would grow six feet or more a year and commence bearing in a year or two. But the blight hit it and cleaned it out. There is only one left now, one of the slower-growing ones, and while it promises to become a tree, it is a very irregular-growing one. I think it had half a dozen nuts on this year.
The Turkish tree hazel, of which I have two trees, were very badly damaged by a very severe hailstorm 12 or 15 years ago, which completely peeled off the bark on one side. That was in early July, and we were afraid to cut them off and let them grow up new for fear it would kill them. They have finally developed into quite beautiful upright trees. Also they have more than one stem from the bottom. One of them produces a great abundance of catkins, but neither of them has produced any nuts yet, and they are 14 feet high or more, good-sized trees and very attractive. The foliage is very beautiful, and it remains healthy. I don't know that there are any other varieties that I can name.
MR. SLATE: We have had several of the Turkish tree hazels, Corylus colurna, growing at Geneva for two or three years. They came from the Rochester State Park. We have one tree which Mr. Bixby imported from China, as Corylus chinensis, but recently I had it checked by Dr. Lawrence of the Bailey Hortorium and he assured me that it was Corylus colurna. I think these make a very handsome tree. I like that rough, corky bark they have as they get older. The trees in Highland Park at Rochester are the largest, perhaps, in the country, certainly the largest that I know anything about. They are at least as large as a very large apple tree. They have been fruiting for some years. The trees at Geneva have not fruited very much. I don't think you can expect much in the way of nuts until the tree is about 15 years old. This year one of our trees has a number of nuts on it. The nuts are too small and too thick-shelled to be of any great value for nuts.
Now, Mr. Whitford, you have had some experience with the filbert varieties. Which one would you recommend?
MR. WHITFORD: I haven't had a whole lot of experience with the filberts, but we had some of the old varieties, like Barcelona and DuChilly, and they didn't bear many nuts, and eventually they went out with blight. And we have some of the Potomac and Reed, about five years old, and they don't bear well as yet. I don't know what the outcome is going to be on the Potomac and Reed. They make a nice ornamental bush, anyway, and that's about the sum and substance of my experience with filberts.
MR. SLATE: The Barcelona and DuChilly at Geneva have not been very satisfactory. During the first two years Barcelona outyielded the other varieties, but as the trees became older they experienced winter injury. DuChilly or Kentish Cob makes a small tree, but the nut is about the best of the nuts. There is a German variety not in circulation in this country, Langsdorfer, which is much like DuChilly, but it seems to make a much better tree. I think if they were put into circulation it might be a good substitute here in the East for DuChilly variety.
Let's hear from you, Mr. Gerardi. I know you are testing filbert varieties now.
MR. GERARDI: Yes, I have DuChilly and Kentish Cob. So far, at our place we have no blight or mite damage to speak of. The original plantings were the Bixby and Buchanan. We have them yet, and they are still as healthy as the day we put them out. They show no damage; even the Winkler hazel has had no damage or disease. It may be the soil, although we have them on high ground and low ground both. Among the newer ones this year the Reed has the most on. The Potomac, though it is the strongest grower of the two, has less nuts. Although it appeared to me that the catkins were all killed in February of this year, still we have some nuts. The Jones hybrids, when the catkins are killed, have very few, if any nuts. Some years we have a crop, if some of the catkins are held back and bloom late. Winter killing in February before they have had a chance to pollinate, has been our main trouble. If we could get a variety that this wouldn't bother, we'd have what we are looking for.
MR. MCDANIEL: The Winkler will bloom for you almost every year. Doesn't the Winkler hold its catkins most years?
MR. GERARDI: Yes, sir, I'd say at our place the Winkler has never failed entirely. Even though the catkins are killed, they still bear quite regularly.
MR. MCDANIEL: I can say that for it at Urbana.
MR. WHITFORD: The catkins might have been killed, but you might have had some cross-pollination from other sources.
MR. GERARDI: There is a chance of that, of course. There is a wild hazel within a quarter of a mile, but apparently the wild hazel bloomed first. They were on a south slope and naturally came out first. I tried to keep them on the north slope, or on the cool side of any particular planting, because if you can hold them back more, you have got a better chance. If you plant them on the south side, you rarely get anything.
MR. SLATE: The hybrids bloom later than the avellana varieties, and they mature nuts later. Is that your experience?
MR. GERARDI: That's true, I will admit your hybrids are a little later blooming, because your American hazel nuts around our place bloom very early, sometimes in January in full bloom.
MR. SLATE: C. avellana starts blooming in March and blooms for about a month. Some years when you have had considerable open weather, they have bloomed as early as the middle of February. They will, of course, stand considerable freezing when they are in bloom.
As regards the pollination, I believe about all the information we have is the work that was done at the Oregon Experiment Station a number of years ago. All of the varieties tried were self-unfruitful or self-incompatible. The term, "self-sterile" is often used, but I think it is a little more exact to say self-unfruitful or self-incompatible. They are not sterile, because the pistillate flowers are normal and so is the pollen produced by the staminate flowers. It's just a question of inability of the pollen to fertilize the pistillate flowers on the same variety.
We know nothing about the pollination requirements of any of these Corylus avellana or Corylus americana hybrids. We do know that when the cross is made that the Corylus americana variety must be the seed-parent. The cross doesn't work the other way around. That's about all we know about the cross-pollination of these filberts.
MR. SAWYER: We have had them to bloom in April or the first week in May.
MR. SLATE: The seedlings?
MR. SAWYER: The seedlings.
MR. SLATE: What is the origin of the seedlings?
MR. SAWYER: They are the natives.
MR. SLATE: The native C. rostrata, or C. cornuta to some botanists, it seems to me has nothing that we want in the way of a nut, if we can possibly grow these other varieties, the americana selections or the hybrids. It's a miserable little nut with that long, prickly husk. It's very difficult to get the nut out of it. For that reason, I have never been very much interested in it.
MR. SAWYER: How is the Ryan?
MR. MCDANIEL: Mr. Gellatly out in British Columbia has named several hybrids between avellana and the Corylus cornuta. Have you seen it?
MR. SLATE: No, I haven't seen it.
MR. MCDANIEL: They described them in their catalog.
MR. COLBY: I have preference for the Winkler hazel, as you know. I bought and put them in the greenhouse several years ago and shook the pollen on the pistils and got a full set. So I felt that was self-fruitful.
MR. SLATE: That was pretty good evidence, then, that it was self-fruitful.
Now, Mr. Silvis, you raise nut trees, and the climate is somewhat like that in Western New York, perhaps a little milder in the winter. What have you to say about the filbert varieties?
MR. SILVIS: It's Warmer, and in spite of all the statistics of previous gentlemen, I find that avellana types which I had growing in my back yard three years ago produced pollen on January the 25th. It was unseasonably warm. It was 70 degrees, and most of the pollen was dispersed. And this year I found the wild hazel pollen much later than the early types, due to the different situation. The wild ones which I had seen were growing in semi shade under tall trees, and my bushes and plants are growing in the back yard south of our house. And I think I have the largest planting in the State of Ohio, about two dozen plants, and I am in production.
Besides numerous seedlings, I have the following varieties: Italian Red, Cosford, Medium Long, DuChilly. They are in bearing. Italian Red and DuChilly planted together, I believe, are good for one another for the production of nice filbert nuts. I have, from scion wood you sent me several years ago, Cosford, and now on their own roots Neue Riesenuss, and what I thought the tag said, not "Langsdorfer," but Langsberger.
MR. SLATE: There is a Langsdorfer, and I think there is another variety which Langsberg is part of the name. I am not sure, I will have to look that up.
MR. SILVIS: Well, I have it as Langsberger. I have shown last evening the picture of Harry L. Pierce's orchard at Willamette in Oregon, or in Salem, Oregon. I have one of his trees with staminate blooms only, no pistillate blooms. But I also have what Fayette Etter in Pennsylvania calls his Royal, and I just cannot get two fellows together with paper and pencil to determine whether those two Royals are the same, but I am hoping to find out whether the two Royals are identical. I had Fayette Etter find me scion wood, and now I have it growing as a graft and layered on its own roots.
I think you people do yourselves an injustice by not learning to graft and learning to work with the filbert. You only have to have three compatible plants. If you have more, you will have more nuts. I see no reason why anyone who owns a city lot cannot grow filberts. They are much easier to take care of, and you are not going to prejudice the plant by having it associate with its wild cousin, and I think you will find a lot of enjoyment in the filbert bush.
MR. SLATE: What variety do you think is best? What two or three would you plant?
MR. SILVIS: For eating I like DuChilly, and the catkin is hardy with me, and I am between the 40th and 41st parallel. I'd say anyone who lives from Iowa to the East Coast within one hundred miles north or south of the 40th parallel should have the same luck that I have. And as to a group planting, I would suggest, as you recommended to me when we first started out the Medium Long, Cosford and Italian Red. If you want only two bushes, Italian Red and DuChilly will work well together.
MR. MCDANIEL: Do you have Medium Long?
MR. SILVIS: Yes, I do.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that doing well?
MR. SILVIS: I don't think it fruits as well as Cosford or DuChilly.
That's been my experience. My DuChilly was plastered with nuts last year
and this year, and I believe it's due to the Italian Red which New York
Fruit Testing Laboratory sold me.
MR. SLATE: Thank you.
MR. WHITFORD: Do you fertilize those bushes?
MR. SILVIS: Due to the fact I have started to mulch with sawdust I have been using nitrate and rock phosphate, so my teeth don't fall out when I chew them.
MR. SLATE: I crack mine with a hand cracker, I don't crack them with my teeth.
DR. COLBY: Mr. Chairman, we can grow filberts. How does the chairman keep the squirrels from eating them?
MR. STOKE: I will tell you that.
MR. SLATE: Mr. Stoke raises his nut trees in the Sunny South, and he has problems down there that we don't have up north. I think he has to worry a lot more about winter killing than we do way up north where we are in Central New York. What's been your experience with some of the varieties and what are your principal cultural problems with the filberts?
MR. STOKE: I wish to answer Dr. Colby's query about squirrels. I find that squirrels are very highly allergic to these BB caps or the CP caps used in a 22 rifle. It works. In my back yard there is a Brixnut filbert, which originated in Oregon. I guess it's been there 15 years. There are four trunks to it, the largest about 16 inches in diameter. One of those I grafted to Giant, as a pollinizer for Brixnut. It's similar in shape, somewhat smaller in spite of its name, but it's pretty effective. Then about ten years ago there was an old gentleman from Halsey, Oregon. I don't know whether any of you have corresponded with him or not. He bought the Breslau Persian walnut—I pretty nearly said the English walnut, and I'd have been disgraced—and furnished me scions and I got a start of it from him. Russ sent me some scions from a filbert he called Jumbo. You will see it out on the table there. It's rather a long nut, little larger than DuChilly and not quite so flat, that I grafted in there. It absolutely is hopeless as a pollinizer for anything, because it loses its staminate blossoms by Christmas. But the Hall's Giant pollinizes them, and it's the best filbert I have, all things considered. This year off that one scion—of course, it's four inches in diameter—I got about 7 quarts of nuts, and they began ripening at least three weeks ago, and the crop is all off now. And the foliage is unusually heavy, almost in clusters, and it drops cleanly and freely from the husks, and I think it is a very nice filbert. Whether it's a recognized variety in the West I have no idea, and I haven't corresponded with the old gentleman for some years, and he probably has passed on by this time, because he was an elderly man and not in good health at the time I had my correspondence with him. I consider that an excellent filbert, and I think anyone wishing to plant filberts should investigate with the Oregon nurseries or Washington nurseries and see if that is a recognized variety. I tried to find out once and failed so far. I do not have it on its own roots. I hope that I will have it rooted in another year.
In my back yard also I have one that I bought in Oregon. That's as tall as up to that beam, maybe almost to the ceiling, very vigorous growth, larger nut than Longfellow, thicker nuts and also longer. But I think the thing he sold me was a graft and the graft died and this came from the root. It bears very sparingly, but it's a very large nut, and I wondered why it was always so spare, and I caught it blooming in December, staminate blossoms in December this year. So that's that.
Ten miles east of my home, east of the Blue Ridge Mountains in the granitic, very heavy clay soil of what we call the Piedmont down there, I have a planting that was made 15 years ago of filberts, some on their own roots and some that I grew on the Turkish tree hazel stocks. Those grew well, and the main advantage was they put up no suckers. You had a nice clean trunk, and you didn't have that problem of getting rid of the sprouts all the time. And it looked very good for a while.
I find where you graft that way, the stocks get old and do not renew themselves, and eventually the life will be shorter than if you had a shrub that might last for a century, when you are renewing your stalks when they reach maturity and cease to grow enough to be productive.
Two years ago I had most of the standard varieties you mentioned here in that planting, about three-quarters or perhaps an acre planted in between chestnut trees. Planted the chestnut trees 40 feet apart and then interplanted with the filberts at 20 feet. Two years ago we had an unusually wet season, and the blight, of which I had had some before, hit hard and virtually ruined the whole planting. And in addition to that, we have leaf miner. It's an insect that lays a tiny egg in the leaf and develops a little larva or worm that eats out the chlorophyll between the two membranes of the leaf, just hollows it out and makes unsightly spots in there and, of course, kills that portion of the leaf. But the blight, known as the eastern filbert blight, according to Mr. Gravatt, has just ruined that planting. Some of the trees have been killed outright, and most of the tops are either dead or dying. This year the blight wasn't apparently active on the living part, because it was very dry up until the first of August, and since then it's been very wet. That's what happened to my filberts there.
Now, in that same location I have some younger, second-generation or third-generation plantings that I grew from scions from the Jones hybrids and so far those have not been attacked by the blight and not much by the leaf miner. I used them to replace some of the others that had died several years ago, so they are right in there together. About the best I have of those are also on exhibit out there and marked as the Jones Hybrid.
At the same time I put out some seedling Colurna or the Turkish tree hazel in that same plot. They were attacked somewhat but not badly by the blight. Today you'd never know they had any blight. They look healthy, and as has already been said, they make a beautiful tree. And if you want an avenue of trees on a drive that don't spread too wide and run up like Lombardi poplar, they'll beat Lombardi poplar all to pieces. And if you crowd them a little, they will grow up like a spire and retain their branches, so you really have a tree.
There was one in the J. F. Jones yard at Lancaster that I think was at least 14 inches in trunk diameter 20 years ago when I saw it. Do you know whether that is still there at the Jones place, that Turkish tree hazel, Mrs. Weber?
MRS. WEBER: Where is it located?
MR. STOKE: It's right near the house, it seems to me between the house and the side near the barn.
DR. MCKAY: Mr. Stoke, that tree is gone. We were there last fall.
MR. STOKE: But it was a very nice tree, and for shade it's very nice. The Manchurian hazel has been spoken of, and I might mention that, because I have dabbled in everything, I guess. I got seed from the University of Nanking along with some other things, and those seedlings were quite variable. The nuts compared rather favorably with the American hazel. Some were thick-shelled, but they will average almost as good as the American hazel, and they bore quite freely for me until I let the bushes get right thick. They will send out suckers and make a very spreading growth. If you dig them out and leave a piece of root in the ground, it will come up just like sassafras or persimmon will on that piece of root. But it is an attractive bush, and mine has a reddish-brown little spot in the middle of the leaf in most cases. It seems to be characteristic of that strain that I have. The nuts were quite variable and, as I say, they bore right well until I let them get too thick. I believe that's all.
MR. SLATE: I neglected to answer your question, Dr. Colby, but the squirrels have not been much of a problem with our filberts at Geneva, strange as it may seem. They have never taken a very high percentage of the crop. We have a Lancaster heartnut, and they clean up every nut on that tree every year before the end of August.
I'd like to comment on this matter of the name of Halle's Giant, I think you called it. I think the name is Halle, the German town where the variety originated. I prefer the name Halle, because calling it Hall's Giant is more or less a sign its origin is a man named Hall.
MR. STOKE: In some catalogs it is one way and some the other.
MR. SLATE: We have other items on the program tonight, and as the Latin student said, "Tempus is fugiting very fast," so I think we had better turn the meeting back to Dr. MacDaniels.
PRESIDENT MACDANIELS: The next two talks have slides to be shown, and it is suggested that you take about ten minutes, take a stretch and then come back when the slide projector is set up.
My Experiences With Chinese Chestnuts
W. J. WILSON, Fort Valley, Ga.
When I was asked to appear on this program to tell my experiences as a grower of chestnuts, I felt like a child, appearing before a group of grown-ups to tell them how to make marriage succeed. When I see the sages of chestnut knowledge seated before me I realize that I can only relate my experiences and ask your advice.
My father was a pioneer peach and pecan grower; he loved trees and has told me time after time that if I ever made more than just a living, farming, it would have to come from trees, not row crops. He was what I would call a self-educated man. He had small chance of formal education, being the sickly son, one of eight sons and three daughters, of a couple who eked out an existence on the poor, unproductive, sandy, soils of Crawford County, Georgia, growing the one and only cash crop of those days, cotton. The combined wages of these boys often amounted to more cash money than their own cotton crop returned because the supplier got most of the money from their own crop. They helped neighbors pick out their cotton crops after finishing their own. Grandfather must have liked to experiment in his limited way. Each spring as Grandfather would plant his small patch of Spanish peanuts and yellow corn, Grandmother would tongue-lash him, saying, 'so long as you fool away your time with Spanish peanuts and yellow corn you will remain a poor man. Time has proven Grandfather right and Grandmother wrong. Spanish peanuts is a huge industry; most of our hybrid corns, which have added millions of bushels to our yields are yellow.
My father wasted his time back at the turn of the century planting a peach orchard on his best cotton land. He planted pecans each winter, beginning about 1912, often to the ribbing of friends who still worshipped at the feet of King Cotton. One told him that he had a pecan tree or two about his home and the damn flying squirrels ate all of the nuts. Another told him that if he wanted a load of stove wood he would just as soon cut down a pecan tree as any other kind. At his death in 1942, my father had planted six hundred acres of pecan orchards, each acre having been interplanted with peaches, to produce income while the pecans were reaching bearing age.
I give you this background so that you may better understand my attitude toward chestnut growing. The scale on which I have set out on chestnut growing I know to some of you will seem rather bold or foolhardy.
About ten years ago I found that the U. S. D. A. Pecan Experiment Station at Albany, Georgia had a small chestnut orchard. Max Hardy, was doing the chestnut work and was so much interested in them that I caught fire and have been burning ever since. When I found that the harvest came between the peach harvest and the pecan harvest it fitted right into my kind of farming. The fact, that it was a possible tree crop made chestnut growing still more attractive to me. Max suggested that I join the N. N. G. A. when I complained that I couldn't find much information on chestnuts. I attended my first convention at Norris. I have tried to make most of them since that time. Of all the discussions at the Norris meeting, the one that stuck in my mind was whether nurseries should recommend seedlings or grafted trees. I thought then, and still think, that for commercial production one must have varieties, because seedlings are so variable. I believe, that when, chestnut growing comes of age, the major part of the production will go through processing plants. It will be a great advantage to have nuts of uniform quality and size, which is and will be impossible with seedlings.
Of the fifteen trees that I planted in 1946, only one fruited in 1951. It bore only 3-1/4 pounds of nuts. The other fourteen did not fruit. This year there are a few scattering burs at seven years of age, on those that I did not graft this spring. I am now too old to wait seven or eight years for a chestnut tree to begin bearing. These trees came from a Virginia nursery. The trees I planted in 1947, I started grafting in 1950, to Nanking, Meiling, and Kuling, and finished this spring, except for a few replants. I also grafted ten trees in 1950 to Abundance. These tops bore the second year, several bearing good burs the same year the scions were set. These grafted trees are anxious to go to work, because they bloom in the spring and again in late July and early August. I have used the in-lay bark, modified cleft, the cleft, and what I call a saddle graft, bevelling two sides of the stock and splitting the scion, thus slipping the split scion down over the prepared stock. I have had equally good take on all types of grafts used. In 1948 I planted two hundred seedlings bought from Max Hardy, grown from seed from the Experiment Station orchard. I believe the production record of this orchard has been given to this convention at previous meetings. You will recall that the off-type trees were rogued, leaving the parent trees of Nanking, Kuling and Meiling and others of good bearing habits. In 1951 four trees out of this lot, were outstanding in precocity. The earliest started dropping nuts the fifteenth of August and bore 7-1/4 pounds. The next matured September 5th and produced 8-1/2 pounds. The third tree is unusual. I noticed it the 4th of October. The ground was covered with nuts, but only an occasional bur. All of the burs were wide open and still on the tree. The crop weighed 6-1/2 pounds. The fourth tree I found on the 5th of October with all of its nuts on the ground, the tree retaining the burs. The yield of this tree was 4-1/2 pounds. Mind you, this was the fourth summer after planting. These trees have repeated this year with another good heavy crop. The other trees in this block bore from none to one or two pounds of nuts in 1951. This year less than ten trees in the block are not bearing. Next spring these ten will be growing new tops, because their present tops are not satisfactory. I noticed that one tree in this block bloomed long after the rest this spring, several weeks in fact. It might have possibilities in northern areas because of its late blooming.
Of the eleven hundred trees planted in 1950, one bore nuts in 1951. I didn't know it until this spring, when I was pruning the trees in this block, and found nuts on the ground under this tree. It is bearing a good crop this year for its size and age. There are a number of these trees bearing this year. Dr. Crane in a hurried inspection of these trees this summer thought those trees bearing were offspring of a certain tree in the Philema orchard.
I do not give my chestnut trees special care. They are fertilized and cultivated the same as young peach orchards. We try to bring in a peach orchard the third summer, with enough fruit to make it worth spraying. I see no reason to wait seven or eight years to get a chestnut orchard into bearing. If you will keep down competition from weeds, cultivate frequently, and give the tree plenty of nitrogen you will be surprised at the growth it will make. I set the trees twenty-four feet each way, with the idea of thinning later when they begin to crowd. In this way I will get higher acre yields in the early years. When they reach maturity I will have them thinned down to forty-eight feet each way. As they reach heavy bearing the rate of growth will slow down and I will adjust the nitrogen to keep them from becoming too vegetative.
So far the only insects that have bothered me are caterpillars that ordinarily feed on wild maypops, or passion flowers. These caterpillars will defoliate a tree. The only tree that I have lost from winter-killing was one defoliated by the caterpillars early last fall. It may become necessary for me to spray for these worms if they become too plentiful.
I do not come before you as an authority on chestnut growing. I feel that to force myself to do my best I should plant enough trees to make me find out how to handle them. In the rush and bustle of peach and pecan growing if I had only a few chestnut trees I might decide that not much was involved, and neglect the chestnuts. I know that with two thousand trees already planted and some of them bearing I am going to make a great effort to make the project profitable. I have decided that chestnut growing has possibilities as a tree crop in my section, and is worth my time and effort. I know there are many problems ahead, but so did my father when he planted peaches and pecans many years ago. I am still meeting new problems with them each year. Problems go hand in hand with the fruit and nut business. It is the fellow who is willing to try to work them out who has a chance to profit. If I wait until all the problems are solved I will never grow chestnuts. The day that I decide that I know all the answers about growing peaches, pecans or chestnuts, is the day I start going broke. I have been badly bent several times while I was struggling to find an answer. Each year starts full of hope, with visions of a nice fat bank balance when the jobs are all done. Then the problems start and if I can lick enough of them, I come through with the right to see if I can't do a still better job next year, despite the risks of too much rain, not enough rain, hail, insects and diseases.
I have found that each year from 15 to 50 million pounds of chestnuts are imported from Europe. The same blight that destroyed our native chestnuts, is going full tilt in Italy and other European countries. If the blight runs its course as it did in this country, it will not be many years until we will not have chestnuts from Europe. I am going to grow some to fill this gap. In 1950 Dr. McKay sent me eight trees, four Meiling, two Nanking, two Kuling. Two Meiling and two Nanking to be planted together, two Meiling and two Kuling together. Each combination to be isolated so that the nuts produced would be of known crosses. These trees bloomed this spring and two of them set a few burs. Next year I hope to turn over to Dr. McKay nuts from these trees to be planted, and grown to fruiting age. I now have about one hundred and sixty grafted trees. I intend to fruit my seedlings with the hope that among them I will find trees superior enough to be given variety status. I will then top-work the rest to varieties. At present I intend to plant more trees each winter until I have at least one hundred acres of orchards. If and when the weevil moves in I will have the equipment on hand to spray, using the same equipment on peaches or pecans.
I would like to see this Association ask that more research on chestnut production be done by the U. S. D. A. It will not be done until we ask for it. The men in the department are not in position to do much asking for additional funds. It is the responsibility of groups like the N. N. G. A. and the Southeastern Chestnut Grower's Association. We are in need of more breeding and selection of new, and better adapted varieties. We need processing research, marketing research, and research in the field of production. We are not going to get it done until we insist on it good and strong.
This spring, at Fort Valley, Georgia, the Southeastern Chestnut Grower's Association was formed. We hold our convention in March and will be glad to have everyone interested in chestnut growing, marketing, processing or research, attend our convention. I think in time this organization will want to become affiliated with the N. N. G. A., to the mutual benefit of both. I will be glad to have any of you visit my orchards and show me how to grow chestnuts, I am constantly searching for information.
PRESIDENT MACDANIELS: We thank Mr. Wilson very much for his talk, and we think it does take a lot of courage to embark on an experiment of that kind.
In view of the lateness of the hour, unless somebody objects, we will adjourn until tomorrow morning at 8:30.
At 9:40 o'clock, p.m., the meeting adjourned.
TUESDAY MORNING SESSION
(Called to order at 8:30 o'clock, a.m., President L. H. MacDaniels presiding.)
Persian Walnuts in the Upper South
H. F. STOKE, Roanoke, Va.
My experience with the Persian walnut has been acquired in the Roanoke district of south-west Virginia. It is located 300 miles from the Atlantic seaboard and my trees are at an approximate elevation of eleven hundred feet. Roanoke is on the same parallel as Springfield, Missouri, and about thirty miles south of Rockport, Indiana.
This experience covers a period of more than twenty years with named varieties and seedlings of the species. I shall here attempt to present some findings that may be of some value to others similarly located.
For the sake of brevity I shall put the cart before the horse, the findings before the facts from which they are derived.
For the upper south and, in my opinion, for the middle west, late vegetating and blossoming is of prime importance for success with the Persian walnut. No matter how vigorous, prolific and precocious the tree may be, nor how fine the nuts, the variety is worthless for anything except shade if the crop is destroyed by normal spring frosts.
In the second place is winter hardiness. This is of two kinds; resistance to extreme cold, and resistance to the wooing of warm winter days that starts premature activity, followed by a destructive freeze.
My experience with the Payne variety is a case in point. Having read some place of the vigor, precocity and heavy bearing of the new variety, then called the Payne Seedling, I secured some scions of it from its originator and worked it on a young black walnut. The variety was already making a name for itself in Northern California and Oregon, not only because of its bearing habits but for the superb quality of its nuts.
During the first few years it did well despite its early starting in the spring, and bore heavy crops; then disaster fell. One spring the tree failed to leaf out at the usual time. On examination I found that it had winter-killed back to five-year wood. The winter had been unusually cold, and the tree could not take it. Pruned back, the belated new growth did not fully mature before winter so in turn was damaged, a phenomenon that recurred from year to year. Exit Payne as a Virginia prospect.
An example of the other type of winter injury was that of my first Crath Carpathian. I secured scions of this variety from Rev. P. C. Crath in 1929. The parent tree had been growing and bearing in the vicinity of Toronto and was apparently fully hardy. The scions grew vigorously on the young black walnut stock on which it was worked, and completed their longitudinal growth early in July, giving ample time for the ripening of the wood before winter.
After several years I noticed the bark on the south side of the trunks dead from so-called sun-scald. Activity had been induced by the warmth of the winter sun, followed by freezing. After some years the wood was killed back to limbs the thickness of one's wrist, and this has been again repeated. The tree was hardy in Ontario, but not in Virginia.
The nut of this variety, which to me is the Crath, is much superior to the average Carpathian, and I think might be well worth while in the north-east and along the Great Lakes, but not in the upper South nor the Mid-West.
Besides their winter weaknesses, both the Payne and Crath start too early in the spring for my conditions.
Broadview and Lancaster both blossom here in mid-season and, since both have a rather long period of producing pistillate blossoms, they seldom fail to produce a crop when properly pollenized.
Franquette and Mayette, both highly recommended as being late vegetating and producing excellent nuts, have offered me some difficulties of another order. With Franquette the chief trouble has been to get a suitable pollenizer. Like the Mayette, its pistillate blossoms appear ten days or more after the staminate blossoms and self-pollination is not effected. I tried King, recommended as a pollenizer, but it was too early to be reliably effective. When Franquette is properly pollenized it, with Payne, is one of the heaviest bearers.
Mayette in Virginia produces a fine, healthy, vigorous tree, but it refuses to produce pistillate blossoms. A dozen nuts is an average crop for a tree that should produce a bushel. It, like Franquette, demands a late pollenizer, but the pistillate blossoms are simply not there. Neither of these two late varieties have ever suffered winter injury with me, nor have been damaged by spring frosts.
I will not attempt to go into detail regarding all the varieties and seedlings that I have tried through the years; Eureka, that ranks with Mayette and Franquette for lateness, but refuses to bear, apparently for want of pollination; Chambers that was recommended along with King for pollenizing the late bloomers but not fully successful; Breslau, with its huge nuts but slow growth, in addition to an assortment of Carpathian seedlings. Of the latter my Caesar is one of the more promising with its vigorous growth, large thin-shelled nuts and ability to pollenize itself in some seasons. Gilbert Becker has reported it passing through Michigan winters unhurt.
As matters now stand, I believe Bedford, Caesar and Lancaster have proven the most satisfactory varieties to date under my conditions, although some seedlings I have grown appear even more promising. Chief of these are several that I grew from open-pollenized nuts of the Lancaster, which I am here exhibiting.
You will note that the one I designate as L-2 is an extremely large nut, considerably larger than its seed parent which it somewhat resembles. L-8 is of somewhat similar type, but smaller. L-3 and L-6, on the other hand, are of entirely different type. Much smaller, they are smooth, thin-shelled and well filled, with kernels running 50% by weight and of high quality. They resemble their seed parent, Lancaster, not at all but in type are much nearer Bedford, their probable pollen parent.
Another one of these seedlings, L-7, resembles Caesar, its probable pollen parent, far more than it does its seed parent.
Some years ago I hand-pollenized several blossoms of Broadview, using pollen from my original Crath.
One of the seedlings from these hand-pollenized nuts resembles Crath much more than Broadview, the seed parent. I have it here as C x B 2.
Aside from the apparent profound influence of the pollen parent on the offspring, there is the unexplained fact at that with the exception of L-8, all these seedlings are later vegetating than the seed parents and any of the suspect pollen parents. Of the Lancaster seedlings L-2, L-3 and L-6 are fully as late as Franquette and Mayette, blooming well after the first of May. Inasmuch as there were no Persians producing pollen anywhere near that time I can only believe that these nuts were pollenized by the black walnut on which they were top-worked. I intend to plant some of these nuts, and expect to produce hybrids.
This brings up the enticing subject of breeding Persian walnuts adapted to one's own conditions. I have no suggestions to offer scientists, but offer the following for the benefit of amateurs like myself.
If your grounds are cluttered up with varieties, as are mine, ingratiate yourself to some friend who has an isolated young black walnut tree by volunteering to convert it to the production of Persian walnuts. Select two varieties whose characteristics you desire to blend and that will pollenize each other, and grow seedlings from the resulting nuts. You can check results in as little as four years by taking buds from the seedlings at two years and placing then on black walnut.
Creative work, this. You will get the thrill of your life—if you are that kind of a person—and may produce something well worth while.
Persian walnuts are self-pollenizing if pistillate and staminate blossoms occur at the same time, but such usually is not the case. Crath, Breslau, Caesar and King produce their pistillate blossoms some days before their staminate blossoms shed their pollen, while Payne, Lancaster, Broadview, Franquette and Mayette produce their blossoms in reverse order. Of all those I have tested only Bedford can be depended to produce both types of bloom simultaneously and certainly and fully pollenize itself.
It is enlightening to keep a record of the blossoming time of each variety relative to others, but dates should all be recorded for the same year. Warm, early spring induces early blooming; late, cool weather delays blossoming. By my records, Payne pistillates were receptive May 3 in 1935, April 28 in 1937 and March 31, in 1945, a variation of over a month. All varieties vary with the season, but the variation is greatest with the early varieties.
There has been little disease among my Persian walnuts except that in wet seasons leaves and nut shucks are sometimes attacked by a fungous blight. In the city there has been no insect injury worthy of note. In the country, adjacent to wooded areas, insect injury is sometimes serious. Pests include spittle bugs, stink bugs and other insects that attack young leaves and tender growth. These check the leaders and cause late multiple growths that may fail to mature and hence winterkill.
In such locations the butternut curculio also attacks and destroys the young nuts. Avoid wooded areas if choosing a site for a Persian walnut orchard.
The most destructive pest with which I have had to contend has been the large black-bird or purple grackle. Oddly enough they are much worse in the city than in the country. As soon as the young are grown, about the middle of June, they appear in flocks and attack the nuts of the Persian walnut. At first, before the shell has hardened, they penetrate the nut apparently for the nectar which is the substance of the immature kernel. When the shell can no longer be penetrated they continue to eat away the husk, which is equally fatal to the nut. This continues until late in July, when the squirrels take over. Fortunately squirrels are highly allergic to a bullet from a 22 rifle.
In pointing out some of the hazards encountered in growing Persian walnuts in the East the writer has not intended to be discouraging but helpful. Persian walnuts of good quality can be grown in this section; full understanding of the factors involved make it possible, I believe, to grow them successfully on a commercial scale.
Varieties of Persian Walnuts in Eastern Iowa
Ira B. Kyhl, Sabula, Iowa
There are a great many varieties of Persian walnuts, many of which originated in the region of the Carpathian mountains and other parts of Europe and a few varieties in the United States and Canada.
I believe that some varieties now grown in the United States and Canada which originated in Europe may have come from the same tree as they appear to have the same shape, thickness of shell and flavor. I have as many as four varieties that are identical.
The Persian walnut has always been my favorite nut. I started with 2 or 3 varieties and now have 35 or 40 varieties and 200 trees most of which are doing well. Some are superior in hardiness and vigor.
In eastern Iowa at 42 degrees N. latitude minimum winter temperatures vary from 25 to 32 degrees below zero. Usually the minimum is 12 to 15 degrees below zero, but last winter it was 25 degrees below zero for several days. Only the hardier varieties will endure -25 degrees without injury, but -12 to -15 does not injure any variety very much.
Schafer is my favorite variety and it was not injured at -25 degrees. I have several of these trees, some from seeds, some top-worked on black walnut and the others grafted trees from a nursery. It grafts easily, grows rapidly and bears a fine nut.
A top-worked tree of Colby withstood -25 degrees without injury and is one of the most vigorous trees I have.
Fifteen seedlings from Crath Mayette and Crath Franquette seeds from the late G. H. Corsan, of Toronto, Canada, are developing into very fine trees, but are not yet bearing.
One of the first varieties planted, Broadview, grew rapidly and produced nuts after two mild winters, but the several trees of this variety killed to the ground after the -25 degrees of last winter.
Crath No. 1, Crath No. 39, and Breslau grew well until last winter when they were killed. Three Breslau seedlings did not winterkill.
Rumanian Giant, the first tree I grafted, killed back somewhat, but is recovering. This variety produces the largest nut I have seen and it fills well.
Top-worked trees of other varieties that were not injured last winter are Crath No. 5, Crath No. 12, SG No. 5, Crath No. 29, Graham and Crath Special.
Seedlings in the nursery row that stood severe temperature are
Carpathian D, NWF Nos. 1 and 3, FB O and FB OO, Fort Custer, Hansen,
Jacobs and others.
MR. STOKE: Does the black walnut bloom at the same time that the Persian walnut blooms?
DR. MCKAY: It bloomed near the end of the receptive period.
MR. STOKE: That first experiment of yours was trying to pollinize the black walnut with the Persian, but the reciprocal cross may be quite different, as Jones proved with the filberts.
DR. McKAY: That could be. We have no large amount of data on the reciprocal cross. These cases where it is said that the black walnut pollinates the Persian regularly and is producing good crops of nuts, I would consider doubtful until I see the seedlings, their growth and characteristics. Yesterday Mr. Bolten asked the question whether or not some walnuts that have large nuts could possibly be tetraploid or polyploid. A number of years ago I examined the chromosomes of one of these large fruited varieties, and it had the same chromosome number as the others, namely sixteen pairs or thirty two.
The whole question of chromosome number in nut varieties and species is as follows. So far as we know, all of the species have a constant number within the genus except the hickories where we have tetraploid species and diploid species. All of the species of Castanea, as far as we know, have the same chromosome number, and all of the varieties within each species have the same number. In the Oaks, which are related to chestnuts, we have an extremely large genus in which there is a great constancy of number. The pines, and all other cone-bearing trees make up another very large group in which chromosome numbers are constant. Exactly the opposite situation is found in the related family of alders and willows where the chromosome number is very variable.
PRESIDENT MacDANIELS: Unless there is some special question or comment on this subject, we will go on to the next item.
MR. LEMKE: There was a panel discussion about four years ago, and they were talking about what nuts to grow, and one of the men said, "Before you offer a man a good nut, give him a good nut cracker." That's been on my mind for some time.
Commercial Production and Processing of Black and Persian Walnuts
EDWIN W. LEMKE, Washington, Mich.
Sometime ago a group of nut minded men associated with Spencer B. Chase announced their findings on the quality of the wild black walnut growing in the area of Norris, Tenn. Nuts were gathered from 151 wild walnut trees. After judging, the group came to the conclusion that only one tree had a flavor that was considered by their standards as good. It is these good nuts that caused the formation of the N.N.G.A. When we speak of the good nut it gives the word commercial an entirely different meaning. It by necessity excludes most of wild black walnut kernels processed by the large cracking plants of Kentucky and Tennessee. The large crackers are willing to pay better prices for the improved black walnut but were they to rely on this source of supply they could not stay in business very long.
To produce and process, I chose the Thomas and Ohio variety and I have met with some success. The black walnut can be made to bear in the first and second year after grafting but this is but a novelty feature. Jones from whom I purchased my trees, told me that the black walnut could be classed with the Northern Spy Apple for coming into bearing. This has proven true. Commercial production of the improved black walnut is by its very nature small scale production. Because of this fact only small scale machines to process these nuts are feasible.
Since 1916 I have had time to reflect on the problem of the three basic machines needed. These are the huller, cracker and kernel picker. Fortunately for me I learned the machinist trade and had a machine shop at my disposal. I tried every way to hull the black walnut and finally accepted the commercial potato peeler as the best principle. I built several crackers and at last accepted the Wiley cracker as the best commercial cracker. The third machine is the picker which has yet to be assembled. This picker is copied after The Kenneth Dick machine with some variations in the separation process.
Let me briefly explain these three basic machines. As the nuts are gathered in the orchard they are brought to the huller in bushel crates. The huller is located in a separate room. This room has the floor depressed to catch the removed hulls that are flushed outdoors with the aid of running water. The cylinder of this huller is 30 inches in diameter and 14 inches high. It is made of 3/16ths boiler plate. Three inches from the bottom of the cylinder is a revolving disc smaller than the inside of the cylinder. The disc being small enough it allows a 5/8th opening around the inside of the cylinder. It is this opening that permits the hulls to drop to the floor. The nuts are held captive because there is no opening in the cylinder for them to leave until the discharge door is opened on the side of the cylinder. The cover of the cylinder has a 10 inch feed hole into which the nuts are fed. A 10 inch furnace pipe elbow runs from the hole to the serving trough into which the nuts are poured. A 10 inch pusher is used to shove the nuts into the huller and serves to keep the feed hole closed while the nuts tumble around. The disc runs at 250 RPM which is the proper speed to do a good job. While the nuts tumble around a stream of water is used to wash the hulls free from the nuts and force the removed hulls to the floor below. The disc is supported by a 1-3/8 inch diameter shaft that runs through the disc and is held central as it revolves in a flange containing a 3/4 ball bearing that fits into the end of the concave in the shaft. Up four feet from the disc is a link self aligning bearing that allows the shaft and disc to turn like a gyroscopic top. The shaft's pulley has 'V' belts connected to a 3/4 h.p. motor. I have hulled up to 40 bushels of clean nuts in 8 hours. The nuts after hulling are placed on drying trays indoors where temperatures are better controlled. The principal of this huller is that it separates the hull by centrifugal force. The hull drops down through the opening between cylinder and disc while the nuts riding on disc are discharged at right angles to the fall of hull. The machine is a separator.
The next basic machine is the cracker. This cracker is the Wylie cracker in principle and is made in Eugene, Oregon. Simply explained it could be likened to two pages in a book. One page is perpendicular while the other page is off the perpendicular about 7 degrees. The first page which is the anvil is fixed save for adjustments for nuts of varying size. The other page or hammer riding up and down through an inch and one quarter of travel is fixed to a crank below. Both of these pages or plates are heavy cast iron plates that are fluted and cause the nut to be cracked against these saw toothed flutes and while being cracked are revolved down through the plates. The plate moving at an angle forces the nut finally through a 3/8 inch opening where they fall into a rotary sieve. The sieve has three sizes of mesh. 5 mesh, 2 mesh and 3/4 mesh. The larger pieces go on through and are returned to the cracker. This cracker will crack up to 500 pounds per hour, and uses a 3/4 h.p. motor.
The last of the three basic machines is the picker. I have not yet built the picker but a number of the parts have already been machined and before long it will be a reality. The Kenneth Dick, picker, of Peebles, Ohio is the best for small orchards. It is essentially a separator using a conveyor belt which carries the cracked nuts to needles that pick up the kernels and deposit them on trays that at the timed moment accept the black walnut kernels. The discarded shells remain on conveyor and travel to the end and fall into a receptacle. After this process, further inspection becomes necessary but up to the present it is the best we have.
The black walnut is a messy nut to fool with but with the proper machines it soon becomes a pleasure to work with it. I can work all day hulling nuts and finish with clean unstained hands.
Processing the Persian walnut is a simple matter as compared with the black walnut. My Persian nuts are gathered and placed on drying trays. Most of the nuts fall free from hull and the stick tights are discarded as inferior. N.N.G.A. members need but write to the agricultural colleges in California, Oregon and Washington and a list of publications will be sent. One of the latest machines being offered is one that picks the nut from the orchard floor with a speed with which no human can compete. It has not only removed the back ache but the human back as well. The Persian walnut industry in the Pacific Coast states is big business.
There is only one organization that can and does disseminate the necessary knowledge and experience that will give the northern grown nut its proper place in the American diet. That is the Northern Nut Grower's Assn. You newer members have become heirs to knowledge based on the experiences of others which represents not only blood, sweat and tears but a lot of good hearty belly laughs. When one becomes nut conscious there is no turning back. It gives life a new approach and a finer meaning.
Black Walnut Processing at Henderson, Kentucky
R. C. MANGELSDORF, St. Louis, Mo.
MR. MANGELSDORF: Mr. Walker and Mr. McDonald are unable to be here today, and I don't know if I can fill their shoes or not, because I am not in the purchasing or processing end of the black walnut business.
We started this black walnut shelling operation a season ago at Henderson, Kentucky, with the idea of processing the nuts there and transporting the kernels to St. Louis for final processing and marketing. At Henderson, Kentucky we are located outside the city limit, and we have no fire protection, and as a result, the insurance rates on our building, storage sheds, and black walnuts in storage have been so high that we are looking around for possible plant location sites where we can reduce that expense of operation.
Another factor in our operation there is the transportation of raw material to our cracking site. If we have to transport black walnuts, which give an approximate 10 per cent yield, any distance, the freight adds materially to the cost per pound of the finished material. That is, if we have to pay 10 cents per hundred additional freight cost in transporting them from outlying districts to the cracking plant, that adds a cent a pound to the cost of the finished kernels. All such factors, have to be given weighty consideration, because our business is primarily concerned with making money for the stockholders. If we don't make money for the stockholders, they are not interested in seeing us continue the operation.
Mr. Walker and Mr. McDonald at the present time are out on a crop inspection trip and also making surveys of locations and availability of buildings or sites that might be more advantageous than the one at Henderson, Kentucky. It may be that we will continue the operation there, making modifications in the building, which will result in lower insurance rates. At the present time, with the new crop coming on, we are in a chaotic state of affairs, because we just don't know exactly what's the best path to follow in our operation at Henderson, Kentucky.
Are there any questions?
DR. MCKAY: Will you tell us something about how you handle the nuts in your plant, how they are hulled and cracked, and so forth?
MR. MANGELSDORF: It's a similar operation to what Mr. Lemke described. The nuts are brought in in burlap bags by the farmers and growers and are put in storage in cribs. The plant at Henderson, Kentucky, was a popcorn processing plant, with a large crib under roof where the nuts are stored. After the moisture content is reduced somewhat, they pass through a tumbling drum to remove any of the extraneous hulls and other dirt that might be adhering.
After the nuts are completely freed of all this extraneous matter, they are passed through a series of cracking rollers with screens. The nuts are cracked, by passing between two rollers like a wringer then passed over a shaker screen, the free nut meats passing through the screen. The large material that comes off of the screen is then passed between more closely spaced cracking rollers and then further sifted and screened. Then the various materials that have passed through the screens are run through a Smalley picker. This is nothing more than metal pins on a series of fingers rotating on a roller that presses against a sponge rubber roller. The nut meats adhere to the prongs or points. The shells, not being penetrated by the points of the pins, are not picked up. Then there is a comb that picks off the adhering kernels from the picker prongs. That's the principle of most of the shelling operations of the black walnuts. I don't believe any major changes have been made in the processing of black walnuts in the last ten years.
DR. COLBY: How do you remove the hulls?
MR. MANGELSDORF: We try to buy only hulled walnuts, the farmer and the grower removing the hulls in a tumbler and selling to us only the dehulled walnuts.
The kernels are packed in cartons and shipped to St. Louis for final picking of remaining shells and off-colored nut meats and graded for color, size and quality. After this grading separation is made, they are either packed in our 4-ounce vacuum-packed tins or 30-pound bulk cartons which are then sold through the trade.
MR. WALLICK: What percentage of kernels do you get?
MR. MANGELSDORF: I think our operation at Henderson, Kentucky this past season for all of the nuts that were grown and gathered in this locality was about 9.48 per cent yield of black walnut kernels by weight.
MR. WHITFORD: Do you get any improved varieties, such as Thomas, Stabler or Ohio?
MR. MANGELSDORF: No. With most of the nuts that we gather in our marketing operation very little attention is paid to variety or source. We don't try to differentiate and store them separately, but everything is processed as it is brought together.
MR. MCDANIEL: Do you have any indication that you get a better quality nut from one county or one area than you do from another?
MR. MANGELSDORF: That is a question that I can't answer, because I am in the research and development end of the business, and have very little to do with the purchasing and marketing of the nuts themselves.
MR. LEMKE: What do you do when you strike a day that is very humid and the nuts start getting moldy?
MR. MANGELSDORF: That is a bugaboo. I always say you don't have to be nuts to be in the nut business, but it sure helps a little bit. All the nuts that I have ever had any dealing with seem to be very susceptible to mold growth. If the moisture content of the nuts is above a critical level, mold growth takes place in the shell at a very fast rate. The only thing we can do in a case like that is to get the kernels in to St. Louis and destroy the mold growth or spores on the surface before it can grow so that the fungous mycelium is visible to the eye. The black walnut and pecan, if you examine them under the microscope, all seem to have mold growth on the surface of the kernels. I am inclined to believe that the nut kernel is not completely sterile in the shell and that through some manner or means the mold spores have been introduced onto the kernel, because immediately after shelling examination of these nuts under a microscope, will show some fungous mycelium on the surface of the kernels.
DR. MCKAY: One comment is that the pellicle of a black walnut or a pecan, is very hygroscopic. It tends to absorb moisture readily, whereas the kernel itself, being high in oil, does not take up water readily. That, apparently, is why there may be evidences of mold growth on the kernel though it may not be actually penetrating. It is only superficial, growing on the pellicle of the kernel, not on the kernel itself.
MR. MANGELSDORF: Right.
DR. MCKAY: Black walnut kernels are outstanding in their resistance to heat and will get rancid very slowly under conditions of high heat—not humidity. For example, we had some nuts in our attic for two summers in a place where it gets very hot, yet dry. Those nuts are in very good eating condition today. I don't know about pecans.
MR. MANGELSDORF: That's very true of black walnuts. Pecans have to be carried throughout the season in our cracking operations under refrigeration, but the black walnuts we can store out in any shed with tin roof. The temperature gets very hot, and it seems to have no effect whatever on the edibility or rancidity of the nut kernel.
MR. STOKE: You spoke of storing the whole nuts in large bins. There you may have an extreme amount of mold, too, if the nuts are damp.
MR. MANGELSDORF: We try to have storage conditions such that air has free passage through the bulk of nuts. The mold and the yeast are there and when they start to grow, their metabolism throws off quite a large amount of heat. As a result the molding process is speeded up like a chain reaction, and before long the nuts will be worthless for shelling.
MR. MANGELSDORF: We had nuts until just a few weeks ago from our last season's gatherings. That's almost a whole year.
MR. SALZER: Can you tell me if the farmer is paid by the weight of the nuts, or does he receive his pay after the kernels are shelled out? Does he receive more money if it contains a higher percent of kernels?
MR. MANGELSDORF: He receives his pay on the basis of the whole nut that he delivers to the plant, and we try to exercise some control over the quality of the delivery. Samples are taken and cracked, and if most of the nuts are rotten or the quality is very low, we may reject buying that entire lot, or we may discount the lot of nuts a certain amount, depending upon the percentage of the nut meats that are salvaged.
MR. MURPHY: Do you pay a premium for cultivated nuts?
MR. MANGELSDORF: That I can't answer, but I don't believe that they have this past season. I wouldn't want to go on record as to that. There is a tremendous difference in the flavor of what we call the "eastern" black walnut in comparison with the California or western black walnut. We think that the flavor of the California walnut is not at all comparable to the eastern black walnut.
MR. MCDANIEL: You don't notice any difference, do you, between the
Missouri and the Kentucky nuts?
MR. MANGELSDORF: No, not in my experience, but there is a tremendous difference in flavor between the eastern and western.
MR. ROHRBACHER: On what basis do you buy black walnuts?
MR. MANGELSDORF: I understand that each individual sale is an individual "horse-trading" deal, the price paid, depending upon the quality of nuts, moisture content, color and other factors. Of course, our aim is to buy the nuts as cheaply as possible and the object of the fellow selling the nuts is to get the greatest return that he can from what he has to offer. So we try to reach a happy medium in our dealings, and a lot of concessions might be made one way or the other with special lots that are offered for sale.
MR. WHITFORD: What sizes and grades of kernels do you have?
MR. MANGELSDORF: We have the large, medium, small and granules. Granules are very small pieces. Usually the prices paid for the nuts are not determined, actually, until the crop starts to move. Everybody has an idea what the market price will be for the nuts, but nothing is crystallized or brought to a focus until the first nuts are actually on the market. Then the nuts sold are examined as to quality, giving some idea of the future quality of deliveries that might be made in that section, and then prices can be established. As I say, it's a nutty business. I haven't grown very many gray hairs yet, but I expect to have many before I am through. And each new problem that arises in this nut business, when you reach a solution for it, invariably there are two other problems that are created, and if you are not wide awake, one of these problems can be much greater than the one that you just had a solution for.
MR. DAVIDSON: Do you know anything as to the bearing of black walnuts this year as compared to previous years?
MR. MANGELSDORF: Mr. Walker and Mr. McDonald are out at the present time making a crop inspection tour of the various localities, and I have had no report as to what the condition of the crop will be this year.
MR. WHITFORD: Which grades bring the highest prices?
MR. MANGELSDORF: The large particles of kernel demand a premium over the smaller sizes. That is one of the discrepancies in the shelling operation, that the material that costs us the least money to produce gives the largest returns. When you have small pieces, the operation of removing the last remaining shells and off-colored particles is much greater than with the large kernels. One large kernel amounts to considerable weight and you may have to pick up many small particles to represent the same weight.
PRESIDENT MacDANIELS: We appreciate very much your talk, Mr.
Mangelsdorf.
One thing that interested me was your statement that having large pieces was an advantage. That question has been argued on the floor of these conventions a number of times and there have been those who claimed that the larger pieces were all ground up anyway and that the varieties from which you can recover large pieces were of no particular merit commercially.
The next paper is, "Nut Shells—Asset or Liability?", T. S. Clark of the
United States Department of Agriculture, Regional Laboratory, Peoria,
Illinois.
Nut Shells—Assets or Liabilities
T. S. CLARK, Northern Regional Research Laboratory,[1] Peoria,
Illinois
ABSTRACT. The value of nut shells as materials for agricultural and industrial use is discussed. Problems of plant location, shell collection, processing, and hazards are considered. Applications and specifications are illustrated.
We are particularly pleased that the Northern Nut Growers Association is presenting this opportunity for a discussion of nut shell utilization. The Northern Regional Research Laboratory feels that it has played an important role in what is now becoming a new industry of increasing magnitude. For the benefit of those who are not already acquainted with the Laboratory, permit me to digress momentarily to explain briefly its organization and functions.
The Northern Regional Laboratory at Peoria, Illinois, is one of four large research laboratories established by an act of Congress in 1938 and placed under the administration of the Bureau of Agricultural and Industrial Chemistry. The function of these laboratories is to conduct research and to develop new chemical and technical uses as well as new and expanded markets for the farm commodities and byproducts of the regions in which the laboratories are located. The commodities studied at the Northern Regional Research Laboratory are the oilseeds, cereal grains and agricultural residues which include corncobs, stalks, straws, sugar cane bagasse, hulls and shells of nuts and fruit pits. Because of the great similarity in chemical and physical characteristics of the residues all research on these materials is conducted at the Northern Laboratory.
During the time that the Northern Laboratory has been actively investigating shell materials and other agricultural residues we have been in direct communication with operators of shell grinding plants; some of these have been visited. We have received numerous letters and calls for information and assistance in solving grinding problems, or in using the ground products. Through these contacts and our experiences we have learned much about the factors that lead to success or failure in this utilization. Ten plants are now producing a variety of ground shell products useful in both agriculture and industry.
When the Northern Laboratory was organized, only one plant, established originally by the California Walnut Growers Association, was grinding nut shells. This plant, following a number of operational difficulties and administrative changes, now processes 40 tons or more of shells per day and produces a wide variety of ground products including exceedingly fine flours for use in plastics and plywood adhesives. It has been said that this plant processes all of the English walnut and apricot pit shells and 80 percent of the peach pit shells available in California.
The Laboratory has attempted to determine the amount of shells and pits available commercially in different areas. Data of this nature has been obtained for the larger cracking plants but there are many small operations for which we lack this information. "Agricultural Statistics" compiled and published annually by the U. S. Department of Agriculture provide an excellent source of information regarding production and, in many cases, the disposition of farm commodities. For example, the production of pecans in 1951, presented by states, totaled more than 73,000 tons for the 10 states reported. However, no data were available regarding marketings in-shell, or the quantities remaining on the farms or in the orchards. Thus, the quantity of pecan shells actually available for processing can be determined only through surveys of cracking plants. Only limited information is available concerning black walnut shells and this has been obtained through the cooperation of shellers or crackers.
In some areas fruit pits, such as apricot and peach pits, accumulate at canneries or freezing plants. Similarity in character of the pit shells to those of the nuts permits their use in plants grinding nut shells. Thus, the supply of raw material in any area may be augmented by inclusion of fruit pit shells.
Collection of nut shells for grinding operations is a relatively simple procedure, particularly where grinding is done at a cracking plant. Where shells must be collected over large areas both rail and truck transportation are used. If fruit pits are considered, provisions should be made for removal of residual flesh or pulp before the pits leave the canneries. In the cases where the pits have been cut during processing of the fruits, the released kernels should be removed before shipping the shells. Pit kernels are valuable for their oil content.
Shell Use During World War II
The production and maintenance schedules set up during World War II resulted in the development and expansion of uses for ground shell materials. Fine flours from walnut shells were needed as extenders in plywood adhesives. Soft grits from various shells were used by the Army Air Forces in the air-blast method for cleaning airplane engines and parts. Grits were required for deburring metal stampings and flash-removal from molded plastics. These uses have expanded considerably to meet civilian needs since the war.
Grinding Nut Shells and Fruit Pits
As uses for ground shell products were developed the Laboratory sought advice of grinding equipment manufacturers for information on the design and construction of suitable grinding plants. Only limited tests had been made and data were not readily available in any published form. Consequently the Laboratory undertook an extensive study on grinding nut shells and fruit pits as part of its research on agricultural residues.
These studies were not limited to grinding only, but included methods of separation and classification based on physical characteristics of the raw materials; the relation of associated mechanical operations; a consideration of the hazards; the problems of labor, management, and merchandising.
A number of fires have occurred in plants grinding nut shells, corncobs, stock feeds, and similar materials. In most cases the causes of fire have been other than the grinding operation. From a consideration of the causes of fires a number of safety precautions have been developed. Good plant housekeeping is paramount. This is essential, not only because of influence of dust and dirt on the maintenance of motors and equipment, but because of the highly explosive nature of shell dusts. The U. S. Bureau of Mines has cooperated closely with the Northern Laboratory in evaluating the explosive hazards of the shell dusts.
Many of the present operators of shelling-grinding plants have benefited from the information and assistance available from this Laboratory. The cooperation of equipment manufacturers has aided considerably in extending the scope of the Laboratory's studies.
The Northern Laboratory has published bulletin AIC-336, "Dry Grinding Agricultural Residues, A New Industrial Enterprise" that summarizes the research conducted to date. This is the first time that such data on engineering and design has been assembled and published to cover this field. Copies of the bulletin may be obtained by addressing requests to the Northern Regional Research Laboratory, Peoria, Illinois.
Plants designed to produce at least 1-1/2 tons per hour of ground shell products will cost upwards of $60,000. A well-engineered plant of such size will require three to five men per shift. Among other factors, the working capacity of a grinding plant depends upon the quantity of shells available and the ability of the organization to merchandize its products. The plant should be located in an area in which at least 5,000 tons of nut shells or fruit pits are annually available at low transportation costs.
Uses of Shell Products
The more important uses for nut shell products, together with their specifications for particle size, are shown in Table 1.
Table 1.—Uses for ground nut shells and fruit pits
+————————————————————————+——————————+ | Applications | Size | | | | | Deburring, cleaning, burnishing and polishing | | | in metal stamping, electroplating and | No. 10 to No. 50 | | plastics industries | | | Soft-grit blasting | No. 10 to No. 30 | | Fillers for plastics and plywood adhesives | Finer than No. 100 | | Insecticide diluents and carriers | Finer than No. 140 | | Explosives | No. 10 to No. 100 | | Fur cleaning | No. 10 to No. 100 | | Poultry litter and mulch (almond and peanut) | 1/4 to 3/4 inch | | Fillers for fertilizers (almond and peanut) | Finer than No. 20 | +————————————————————————+——————————+
Experience shows that no matter how nut shells or fruit pit shells are ground both under- and oversize particles will be produced. The hard, friable character of most of the nut shells makes their reduction to fine size particles less difficult than for tough materials, such as corncobs, or fibrous materials such as woods. Shells from almonds because of their bulk and very fibrous nature are somewhat less convenient to handle than other shells. Good business practice shows that sales outlets should be found for each fraction so that grinding expenses can be kept at a minimum.
Because there are some differences in physical characteristics of nut shells and fruit pits all shell products do not necessarily meet the same specifications, nor have the same uses.
Industrial Cleaning and Finishing
Oil, dirt, corrosion products, stain, paint, grease and the like can be removed from metal surfaces by air-blasting with soft grits prepared from shells of walnuts, pecans, peach pits, and similar residues. This method was developed originally for the Navy to use grits from corn-cobs for cleaning aircraft engines and parts. The method is inexpensive and foolproof because surfaces are cleaned without change of dimensions. No pitting or abrasion, such as produced by sand blasting, occurs. The method is particularly useful with mild steel, nonferrous metals, alloys, and parts that must be maintained at close tolerances. Modifications of the blast method are used in finishing molded plastics, metal die-castings, and machined parts. One manufacturer of precision instruments states that his company saves $100,000 a year in finishing parts with shell grits.
Many stamped metal articles and molded plastics are deburred, cleaned, burnished, and polished by tumbling in drums containing shell grits. Various grades of grits are required depending upon the nature of the pieces being finished.
Fillers for Plastics and Plywood Glues
The Laboratory has studied the use of shell flours for use in plastics and plywood glues. Many of these flours are now in regular commercial use. Flours for these applications are prepared in various grades, all finer than 100-mesh. Use of these flours not only improves the properties of the final products but also reduces the cost of the products. Molded plastics prepared with fine flour from English walnut shells have exceptionally fine surface finish.
Insecticide Carriers
The insecticide field provides a good outlet for shell flours. Flour from walnut shells was the first of this type of material to be used for this purpose. Often the active ingredient in a finished insecticide is present in quantities of less than 1 percent. Custom grinders should plan to recover the flour as a co-product of their operations rather than attempting to grind to flour alone.
Explosives
Large amounts of shell grits and meal are used as diluents in the manufacture of dynamite. Material for this use ranges in size from No. 10 to No. 100, the requirements of the individual manufacturers falling within much narrower limits as to size.
Fur Cleaning
Furriers have found that various ground shell products are very effective agents for cleaning furs. Size requirements for this purpose are broad, the limits being dependent upon the cleaning equipment maintained by the furrier. The natural oils present in some shell products are considered advantageous for this application.
Sundry Applications
Stock bedding, poultry litters, fillers in feeds and fertilizers, mulches, charcoal, tannin and abrasives in hand soaps are some of the other products that are prepared from nut shells. The shell products cannot be used interchangeably but must be selected in accordance with their chemical and physical properties.
I hope that the foregoing brief discussion has conveyed to you the potential value that lies in the piles of shells accumulating at the cracking plants, and that these accumulations can be converted from expensive wastes to profitable products.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: One of the laboratories of the Bureau of Agricultural and
Industrial Chemistry, Agricultural Research Administration, United
States Department of Agriculture.]
The Propagation of the Hickories
(Panel Discussion led by F. L. O'Rourke, East Lansing, Mich.)
MR. O'ROURKE: I hope that we can have a rather stimulating session on hickory propagation this morning. Last year we had a session which was supposed to take in propagation of all nut tree species. However, we never got away from Chinese chestnuts. It was Chinese chestnuts from the start to the finish. The Program Committee this time thought that we should limit it to one group, and they chose the hickories.
I have compiled a review of all the literature pertaining to the hickories and passed it out yesterday afternoon. I hope that some of you have had a chance to read it and will have some questions to ask us this morning.
In order to really have some help, I am going to call upon Mr. Louis
Gerardi of Illinois, Mr. Ferguson of Iowa, Mr. Max Hardy of Georgia, Mr.
Ward of Indiana, and Mr. Wilkinson also of Indiana and Mr. Bernath of
Poughkeepsie, New York.
The subject matter of the panel will be limited to the propagation of hickories, which includes the pecan.
Who has some questions that they'd like to bring up?
MR. SALZER: Which varieties will grow on fairly wet soil?
MR. O'ROURKE: That is a question pertaining to culture, rather than propagation, but we can still allow it. Which varieties—I presume you mean species, is that correct?—will grow on fairly wet soil? I think Mr. Ward has a little bit of black soil in that good, old state of Indiana.
MR. SALZER: I mean soil that doesn't dry well in the spring. I have one spot that's too wet for chestnuts.
MR. WARD: I wouldn't put any hickory nuts on it. You are going to find it is going to be very difficult for if the soil is the least bit heavy or wet, the hickory nut does not do well at all. In the Wabash bottoms there is a lot of this black soil that is overflowed every year, and some of the finest hickory nuts and some of the finest pecans that you can find in the country are there. Sometimes I have seen water marks on those hickory trees several feet from the ground in the spring of the year and sometimes in the summer, yet they come through with a good crop of nuts. Underneath it is a strata of gravel so that the soil drains out in a hurry.
MR. SALZER: This has subsoil drainage.
MR. WARD: The soil around Rochester is very heavy like what we call slashland type of soil here in Indiana, and where this occurs we find that the hickory nut does very, very poorly. I wouldn't advise putting them on such soils. The black walnut will grow a lot better in places like that.
MR. GERARDI: In Illinois we have that deep, black soil and we just call it plain gumbo. It's all filled-in soil, and I never have reached the bottom. It's at least 20 feet thick. And these swamp hickories—I think Reed was the one that called them swamp hickories—thrive there. They can be two months under water six foot deep, and still bear wonderful crops. You can get a wagon load of them in that mucky soil.
MR. CALDWELL: The hickory in New York State which will stand the most moist conditions is the bitternut hickory, and with that root stock you may be able to get some of the others through. The shagbark will withstand considerable moisture if it has deep soil. The bitternut does well on shallow soil or the soil that is made shallow by high water.
MR. O'ROURKE: The bitternut, then, will survive wet conditions. This is of interest as far as root stocks are concerned. I am wondering if anyone would like to report on the ability of the pecan to take wet soil conditions.
MR. WILKINSON: They will turn out all right if they have dry feet during the summer months, but they will not stand wet feet all summer.
MR. O'ROURKE: Will the bitternut do better, or would the mockernut?
MR. WILKINSON: I am not well enough versed on that to say. But the pecan, I have seen them stand under water for weeks at a time two or three times during the winter, water 20 feet deep and not affect them at all. But if they are around in a place where the water stands in July and August, they won't take it.
MR. O'ROURKE: Any other discussion on stocks that will take wet soil conditions? If not, let us take up Mr. Beckert's question: When do you take scion wood of the shagbark hickory? Who would like to answer that? Mr. Gerardi?
MR. GERARDI: The time I like best, the time it can be done in our particular area is the latter part of February. Leave it on the tree as long as you can before any sap rises.
MR. O'ROURKE: You would say probably 10 days to 2 weeks before the bud scales would break?
MR. GERARDI: That's right, before any growth begins.
MR. O'ROURKE: Any other comment on that? Dr. McKay?
DR. MCKAY: I want to ask the question about which there is difference of opinion. Do pecan seed have a rest period, and is there any difference between pecans and hickory in that respect?
MR. HARDY: I am not sure that I can answer the question exactly. Most pecans planted for seed have been allowed to dry before they are harvested, and it is general practice to stratify them either in sand for planting in the spring or planting them immediately in the fall. I am inclined to think that there is very little rest period in pecans and that if they were planted immediately from the tree that perhaps they would begin to grow almost immediately.
DR. MCKAY: I think that's true. The seed will germinate quickly. But can you plant dry seed any time during the winter?
MR. HARDY: Once they are dried I think they must go through after-ripening conditions.
MR. O'ROURKE: Do I understand you correctly that you do feel that the pecan must be after-ripened?
MR. HARDY: Yes, if permitted to dry.
MR. O'ROURKE: The work of Burdette in Texas a great many years ago has indicated that the pecan seed does not have a rest period. Mr. Wilkinson, what has been your experience in germinating pecan seeds?
MR. WILKINSON: I usually like to either plant or stratify soon after gathering, although one time I had some off the shelf of a grocery store in March and got excellent results. One thing more about time of cutting graft wood. I never like to cut it for at least 48 hours after a freezing temperature, regardless of time. I would rather cut it in April with the buds green than to cut it in the first of March right after a freeze. I have had excellent results just this spring cutting extra graft wood with green buds on. But if you cut it within 48 hours after a freezing temperature, you might just as well throw it away.
MR. O'ROURKE: I am very glad you brought that out. Irrespective of whether it be pecan or hickory, I believe it would work the same, that the scion wood should be cut when it is moist, and that is not the condition after a freeze, when it is in very dry condition.
Let's get back to this seed propagation now. I am asking anyone here, can you throw any light at all on the need for stratification of pecan or hickory seed of any species.
MR. CALDWELL: I have read in several publications that hickories should be stratified over the winter period before planting for spring germination. I always find things a little bit different, so a year ago at the greenhouse I took seven different sources of seed of shagbark hickory, Carya ovata and one source of Carya ovalis. Some of those seeds germinated within three weeks from the time I put them in, and after a month and a half I had a full stand in all cases. I don't think that more than 2 per cent of the seeds failed to germinate. They were planted in warm greenhouse, with a minimum of, about 68 degrees at night and about 90 during the day. They were planted in a combination of peat and garden soil; no special care other than water. I have had no trouble since the seedlings have continued to grow, even though the seeds were planted only two and a half inches deep. So it may be that there is no need for stratifying hickories.
MR. O'ROURKE: Your experience is the exact duplication of Dr. Lelia Barton's of the Boyce-Thompson Institute. She found that hickory seeds germinated from three weeks, as you did, to a number of months, when put in a warm greenhouse. Apparently the difference in time is related to the thickness of the seed coat or possibly to an inhibitor in the pellicle rather than to any need for after-ripening. I think that Burdette in Texas also pointed out that thick-shelled pecans took longer to germinate than thin-shelled pecans.
MR. PATAKY: If you take a nut of any kind and let it dry and plant it, you will get quicker germination than if you plant it soon after harvest. I don't see any difference in taking a nut and planting it and stratifying it. If planted the rodents will get it, but if you put it in something all winter, it will be there in the spring. I don't see any reason for planting a nut in the fall, taking a chance of rodents getting at them. If you plant them in the spring, they come up so much quicker that the rodents don't have a chance to get at them. They got nearly all of mine that I planted in the fall.
MR. HARDY: A good many nuts don't have any rest period requirements. I think it probably is a matter of convenience as to the manner in which they are handled. I have talked with nurserymen in the South. If they get the nuts in the fall they may either plant them in the fall or stratify them over winter and then plant them in the rows in the spring. If they get them in the spring, they soak them for a day or two days in water before planting. Perhaps the dry nut is slow in taking up moisture direct from the soil, and they are primarily interested in getting a uniform stand of trees so that they handle it in such a manner that all the nuts will grow at the same time. And I believe many will agree that a dry nut planted in the spring will show considerable variation as to the time in which they appear above ground.
MR. O'ROURKE: The suggestion of soaking them in water a few days is well taken, because a great many have recommended it. Most folks recommend changing the water daily. By changing the water you replace the oxygen which would be in the water, and you also eliminate any toxic substances which may have leached out of the shells during the preceding 24 hours.
DR. MCKAY: I'd like to mention the reason for raising this question. Dr. Crane has the idea that there is no definite rest period in the pecan nut; if they are soaked in water they will sprout at any time.
I decided I would test that hypothesis, so I stratified one group of nuts of about four pounds. Another lot of four pounds I kept in the laboratory dry all winter long. Then I planted the two lots of nuts this spring together, side by side, in the cold frame. Today there is not a single seedling growing out of the dry lot, and there is a perfect stand in the group that was stratified.
To me that means that there is a definite rest period in the pecan seed.
I don't see how you can get away from it.
MR. O'ROURKE: I am going to stick my neck out a little bit. I have absolutely no basis to make this statement, but it does give us something to think about. That is the greater the distance towards the north that certain species of plants may have migrated or disseminated, the greater the rest period requirement. That is a protective device for a species to persist in northern climates, because if it were not for this rest period, those seed would germinate in the fall of the year, and the young seedlings would be frozen out immediately. But by having the rest period requirement over winter, the seedlings do not germinate until the following spring, and the plant can persist. I am speaking now in general of northern plants. I am wondering if the pecan species in itself may not be variable in that the southern pecan does not need a rest period, and the northern pecan is beginning to develop the rest period requirement.
MR. HARDY: Mr. Chairman, I am inclined to think there may be some other factor entering into the picture there. A pecan carried through winter in a dry condition at normal room temperatures would be liable to develop quite a bit of rancidity by spring. Furthermore, nuts that have been held over so long in a dry condition may still be good and may germinate the second year. I'd hesitate to destroy that planting until next spring, and to my notion that does not indicate dormancy so much as it would possibly indicate the inhibition of growth by some other products developed during that storage period.
MR. O'ROURKE: You have brought up a very important point and something we should not neglect. It may be that drying to a certain degree will induce dormancy, a grievously overworked word, but you know what I mean. It may take two years for the seed to germinate, as Mr. Hardy has suggested. If you can leave them in that cold frame over this winter, maybe you can tell us next year just what happened.
MR. PATAKY: If we take nature's way, watch a squirrel plant a hickory or black walnut. He will bury it about an inch deep, and it will stay moist all winter long, the same as if it were stratified. But if you take a nut and store in a hot place you are going to slow up or kill that germ.
You can do that very easily in a chestnut. Take a little advice from nature itself in the locality where you are. If you are in the South, that nut can start growing in the fall, and it probably won't hurt it, but if you are in the North, you don't want to start a nut growing in the winter, because it's going to get winter killed.
MR. O'ROURKE: In all probability the amount of oxygen about the germinating seedling might be quite a factor. The shallow planted seed will have more oxygen available than deep planted seed, everything else being equal.
If we are finished with the discussion or germination of seeds, we can go on to the next question, that of a suitable root stock for hickory—and that could keep us here for two or three days. Have you had some experience, Mr. Ferguson?
MR. FERGUSON: We use the pecan and the shagbark as root stock for the hickory group. Formerly we have used some of the bitternut, but we do not use it any more. Some of the hickories will grow well on pecan, and some are not satisfactory at all. What they will do in old age is hard to tell. We have a few in the orchard down in Mr. Snyder's farm. I think we have Stratford on pecan, which is not satisfactory. Pecan grows too fast for the Stratford, and some way or other it just doesn't work.
MR. O'ROURKE: Are you familiar with Mr. Lassiter's stock work?
MR. FERGUSON: He has used the Rockville as an intermediate stock on pecan. The Rockville is a hybrid of the pecan and the shellbark.
MR. O'ROURKE: Mr. Lassiter sent us a letter in which he stated that he had a good variety of shagbark that when grafted on the Rockville intermediate stock produced much better nuts than on pecans alone. Is that due to the exceptional vigor of Rockville which apparently is a hybrid and may have hybrid vigor? Again, we can only guess. This interstock problem is a big problem. We now have some evidence that pecan is not always satisfactory for all varieties of hickory, although Mr. Dunstan at Greensboro, North Carolina, states it's been satisfactory for every variety he has worked upon it.
MR. HARDY: I am inclined to believe that root stocks and scion varieties worked in the north and grown in the north or worked in the south and grown in the south may not react the same.
MR. WILSON: I think you are right on that.
MR. O'ROURKE: Mr. Gilbert Smith's report of yesterday indicated a pecan was not satisfactory with him in New York State, and that may bear out the comment that Mr. Hardy has made.
MR. GERARDI: Well, I think that is true enough, myself. In southern Illinois I find that the bitternut hickory root for shellbark or shagbark don't seem to be satisfactory at all. With the shagbark on pecan, the variety of shagbark makes a difference. Some varieties of shagbark, and shellbark hickories seem to do all right, and then again others don't. It's going to need further study to determine what varieties will stand on pecans, what will stand on bitter hickories, or what will stand on regular ovata stock. I think that the nurseryman's wisest way is to use stocks of the same species as the scion and then he is on the safe side. Because the bitter hickory grows faster, the nurseryman may find it advantageous to grow the bitter hickory stock in preference to the other two.
MR. O'ROURKE: The bitter stock makes a hickory big enough to graft in two or three years.
MR. GERARDI: In two or three, and four or five for the shagbark. Shagbark or shellbark varieties on bitternut may grow for three or four years and then die.
The pecan does well on the bitter hickory and the bitter hickory on the pecan, but I have no reason to grow any bitter hickory because I don't like the nut. I think it's a waste of time to fool with it that way.
As far as the hybrid pecans are concerned, the pecan root is certainly the right stock to use on all hybrids. They grow very satisfactorily and bear well.
MR. WHITFORD: I have Gerardi and McAllister hybrids growing on pecan, and the Downing overgrows the pecan.
MR. O'ROURKE: To summarize some of this information that we have gathered this morning on root stocks, it seems that different clones behave differently on the same stock. That is true, we know, with other plants, such as apple. Instead of saying that shagbark is not compatible with pecan, perhaps we should say that the Davis or the Wilcox variety of shagbark is not compatible with a certain type of pecan. It's going to take years of effort to find out the truth of the matter.
MR. WARD: Sometimes you will find that a two-year-old scion, if you can get a dormant bud coming, is better than the matured wood from last year. I'd just like to get an opinion from some of the growers what they use for topworking stocks for grafting.
MR. FERGUSON: I think one thing quite important is to get scion wood that has a good layer of wood around the pith, whether one-year wood or two-year wood. At the base of the year's growth it will have a lot more wood in it. At the tip the wood around the pith is thin.
MR. O'ROURKE: Some years ago Dr. MacDaniels stated that a good scion may be made with the tip of the scion in the one-year wood and the base of the scion in the two-year wood.
Mr. Bernath at Poughkeepsie, New York, has done some bench grafting of hickory. Why other people have not done so, I do not know, and I'd like Mr. Bernath to tell us briefly just why he likes to bench graft hickory.
MR. BERNATH: I like it because I do my work in the wintertime under glass. I have no time in the spring to fuss with outside grafting. So if you gentlemen would like to hear it, I will tell you all about it.
Many years ago when I learned my profession, we had difficulty in finding a method to graft oaks. We finally did find a method that would take and which I have found successful with hickories.
The stocks are dug in the fall and stored heeled in earth. When I am ready to graft I put them on a table, along with the scion wood and start grafting. I use the side graft at the crown leaving a short spur above the graft. Leave them unwaxed and layer them in moss peat in a glass covered frame in the greenhouse with some ventilation. In three or four weeks' time, when the union has formed and just before the leaves come out, take them out and plant them in a cold frame outside. Of course you have to put glass on it to protect them from frost, as well as intense sun. Here you can use part peat and part soil. Leave them there for one year in those frames, with partial shade, until they get fairly high so they shade each other. They can then be set in the nursery row.
MR. O'ROURKE: Mr. Bernath, I know there are some folks here who are nurserymen and who are interested in the cost of production of a finished tree. Do you feel that you can produce a tree to transplant any height you want to select, five, six feet, so on, as cheaply according to this method of bench grafting in the greenhouse as if you bud it or graft it in a nursery row?
MR. BERNATH: That's a question. I have never kept a record of that. It is all right for a young man who is able to get down on his hands and knees and graft, but for me that wouldn't do.
MR. FERGUSON: What temperature do you use in the frames?
MR. BERNATH: About 65. Sun heat naturally will raise it. Care must be used to ventilate the frames in the greenhouse to prevent condensation soaking the grafts.
MR. FERGUSON: Do you carry higher temperatures for walnuts?
MR. BERNATH: All of them about the same. You follow the method just the same as nature. If you follow nature, you will never go wrong. But you have to watch out for fungus in the case, because if you have excessive temperature, the fungus disease will get in your case and ruin the whole thing.
MR. WARD: I presume, Mr. Bernath, when you set out a tree and get a hundred per cent stand it's going to reduce your cost.
MR. BERNATH: Yes, because you have a better take, because you have everything under control, moisture, heat, ventilation, and so on.
MR. BECKERT: Are the hickory stocks potted before you graft, or are you grafting bare roots?
MR. BERNATH: Hickory and oaks are bare rooted. They are too long to pot.
MR. SHESSLER: How many years are lost in this method of bench grafting compared with field grafting trees in the nursery row?
MR. BERNATH: Quite a few. The gentleman is right, if you graft outside where the tree remains, you get a big growth on it.
MR. SHESSLER: In other words, a tree grafted out in the field will have nuts on it three years sooner?
MR. BERNATH: Yes if you leave it where it is. But if you transplant it, look out for a large tree. It is likely to fail.
Bench grafted trees transplant easily. The roots are limited and little of the root system is destroyed.
MR. WILKINSON: I have been propagating for about 39 years, and I have grafted thousands of pecan trees in my nursery, and I have only a few trees growing from grafts. Budding is much more successful with me. Several times I have had up to a 90 per cent stand by budding.
MR. GERARDI: I have tried bench grafting but it sets you back three years in the nursery to get a tree of equal size compared to grafting in the nursery row. If you want a small tree, it's all right. And then again, it's your help situation. If you have got to set them out, they handle the grafts like brush, and I don't like that. Hickory is not hard to graft in the field. I think if you set 10 you get 9 to grow. For scions I go back on two-year wood and oftentimes on three-year wood where there are buds. I don't have trouble at all. With pecans, you have a little more difficulty, because the wood is more pithy inside and doesn't grow so well.
MR. BERNATH: With any tree, I don't care what it is, give me one-year growth, this year's growth, and I am going to have wonderful success. When you take the old wood you have to be sure that you have buds.